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’ (2023), 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 May 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 had for several years her own booking agency called Red Velvet Sounds in the US and was 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.
Gabriela Martina has many hidden talents, one of them being cooking which she clearly proved through her cookbook she wrote during the desperate times of the pandemic 2020/2021 called ‘Dinner with My Neighbor’. Read more about her and her vision on her website: https://www.gabrielamartina.com/
ENSEMBLE BIO
This ensemble has been founded at the time Gabriela Martina went to Berklee and it exists for already more than 14 years.
Gabriela just released her album ‘STATES’ that came out in May 2024 and she is booking tours for that right now. Also is she currently working on her newest album (name still to be decided) to be released hopefully in 2025.
Her previously recorded album ‘Homage to Grämlis’ fuses Swiss traditional folk music with diverse musical genres from the United States. Gabriela Martina has a discography with over 12 records and 5 of them are all original music.
Gabriela Martina had the honor of performing in concert venues such as the Berklee Performance Center, Jordan Hall, International Tennis Hall of Fame, State House of Flags, Scullers Jazz Club, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and many others. The musicians are Kyle Miles (bass), Vancil Cooper (drums), Ben Rosenblum (accordion), Maxim Lubarsky (piano), Jussi Reijonen (guitar) and they all have their own musical careers with very impressive resumes.
The band members have performed with musicians such as: Hamilton touring band, Marcus Strickland, Keyon Harrold, Meshell Ndegeocello, Steeve Gett, Patrice Rushen, Greg Osby, Terri Lynn Carrington Queen Latifah, Nick Carter (BackstreetBoys), Lalah Hathaway and played at: Appel Room at Lincoln Center, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Ravinia, the Library of Congress and Himawari-No-Sato Concert Hall in Yokohama.
