Marieke Koopman

‘If music be the food of love, play on!’ – Shakespeare

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. She started frequenting venue’s like: Nick Vollebregt, Singer theatre, the Doelen Jazz-café. Next to that she wanted to show children the wonders of classical music. Together with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Marieke wrote and performed (from 2012 until now) in many places all over Europe. Frequenting concert-halls as Vredenburg, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Doelen Rotterdam, as well as famous halls in Barcelona, Milan, Lubeck, and many more cities, even in Zermatt, Suisse.

Yet she continued studying singing, falling more and more in love with early jazz (Swing-era) every step of the way. ‘The deepness of the lyrics combined with the most wonderful music hits me every time! People really felt something then…’ Her love for stories, emotions but also beautiful melodies were and are the driving energy behind Marieke’s interpretations and improvisations.

In the fall of 2019 Marieke embarked on an exciting new project. After performing for many years, she wanted to take a big new step into the music. She decided it was time to record her own cd. After finding a label and producer Marieke was energized to finally fulfill her dream. In choosing her repertoire, she was again reminded of why she decided to go into music: her love of stories, rhythm, and emotion in every style of music. She wanted to combine her roots in classical music with her own style and love of Jazz. She was reminded of a story from her grandfather being a very enthusiastic jazz drummer in the Swing-era. She finally understood her roots and especially in jazz from the early 30’s until the late 40’s. The theme of her debut cd was born.

Now she could finally work on her own sound. She chose 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.