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Gabriela Martina
Gabriela Martina is a vocalist, composer, and bandleader who grew up in Switzerland.
About Me
Gabriela Martina is a vocalist, composer, and bandleader who grew up in Switzerland. She spent 13 years
living and working in the US (Boston & New York) learning from the people who made Jazz (among many
other styles of music originating from the US) as important of an art form as it is today.
Gabriela grew up yodeling with her family and had performances as early as the age of 4. Being raised on a
beautiful farm in the heart of Switzerland surrounded by a musical family has influenced her musical path
strongly. Martina’s upcoming album ‘Homage to Grämlis’ (delayed by Corona 2020), is a tribute to the farm in
the Swiss Alps where she was raised. In spring of 2019 she won the LABgrant from The Boston Foundation,
which gave her great support with her album production of ‘Homage to Grämlis’.
In the fall of 2021, Martina had the great honor to receive the arts & culture award 2020 from the arts and
culture commission Horw, her home town in Switzerland. She also received the DIPLÔME DE MÉDAILLE DE
VERMEIL from the lauréats Arts-Sciences-Lettres, 2020, in Paris (France).
During the time of the pandemic, Gabriela Martina has composed nine new compositions for her newest
album called ‘STATES’. The word ‘States’ refers to the United States of America, but also to a ‘state of mind’, or
simply a ‘state of being’. Sounds created with your voice and percussion/drumming as the first human musical
elements. She has used them as the core elements for her compositions. Her works include word play, music
with words (spoken word) and words with no meaning (gibberish). The release for this album is slated for
2024!
Released in 2016 with a four-star review from DownBeat, her album, No White Shoes, represented a major
step in the singer’s sojourn as a 21st-century musician. Martina had the opportunity to perform and
collaborate with heavyweights like Meshell Ndegeocello, Jack DeJohnette, and Angelique Kidjo. She recorded
with veteran drummer J.R. Robinson and was a semi-finalist in the Shure Voice Competition at the 2009
Montreux Jazz Festival, performing with guitarist Lee Ritenour’s band. Martina released a critically hailed EP in
2010, Curiosity, which included her original song “Ain’t Nobody,” a finalist in the American Society of
Composers, Authors, and Publishers Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards in 2012. Martina owns her
own booking agency called Red Velvet Sounds and is cofounder and curator of the free improv concert series
In Momentum.
In June 2019 she took part in the Central Swiss Yodeling Festival and graduated with top marks. She has also
performed in concert venues such as the Berklee Performance Center, Jordan Hall, International Tennis Hall of
Fame, State House of Flags and the Scullers Jazz Club. Gabriela has a bachelor's degree from Berklee College
of Music and a master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Donna
McElroy, Jason Moran, Cecil McBee, Miguel Zenon, Frank Carlberg, Dominique Eade, Ken Schaphorst, Jerry
Bergonzi among many others.
Martina is passionate about learning more about other cultures, helping to develop a sense for community,
and fighting inequality and racism. She is a strong advocate of causes that promote equal human rights
independent of religious or political affiliations. From 2009 to 2010, Martina was the founder and president of
the Cultural Leaders Club at Berklee College of Music, where students investigated causes and effects in
terms of race, gender, and ethnicity issues. Sonic Relief, which Martina cofounded, was awarded the Berklee
Urban Service Award 2016 for using music to aid people in need, such as organizing a humanitarian
fundraising concert for Syrian refugees, featuring Simon Shaheen and the Lee Swensen Katz Trio in December
2015.
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