Marieke Koopman - Chapter One

Facts Marieke Koopman was destined for music. Growing up in a musical household, Marieke was always surrounded by musicians, music, and creativity. "Even as a kid I was always singing, wherever I was!" As a daughter of two well-known musicians, it was no surprise she chose a creative and musical life as well. "Music in not only the note you sing. You need to really tell a story." So, after years of studying with teachers as Max van Egmond, Astrid Seriese, Floor van Zutphen, Sanna van Vliet and Deborah Carter, she wanted to go even deeper into her performance. She decided to go to acting school. Studying acting with teachers as Nelleke Zitman, Erik v/t Wout, Truus te Selle, brought her a strong understanding of words, subtext and meaning, but also of how to incorporate words, melody, and performance into one strong appearance. Marieke was finally ready to follow her heart's desire into music. From that point on she started performing Jazz. After graduating she focused her work on two main area's: performing as a jazz-singer and writing and playing children's theatre. During this time, she really started focusing on swing jazz and performing with Big bands. For this release she has chosen jazz-standards (some known, others not so known) which had strong lyrics or were little gems melody wise and mixed them with her own style. Never being afraid of opinions or stepping out of the box, Marieke loves to transform songs and has found a way of communicating her emotions through playful rhythmic and melodic interpretations, improvisations, as well as her use of lyrical timing.