Bio
Maria Pelekanou lives in Bremen, Germany and works as a sound artist and composer for interdisciplinary projects. She combines electronics, electroacoustics and 3D sound technology with visual elements in live performances to penetrate deeply into the physical and emotional essence of sound and space. Since childhood, music has accompanied Maria throughout her life. She grew up singing and playing piano in Thessaloniki, Greece. During her studies at the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the Mediterranean University of Crete, she gradually found her way as a creative composer. Her artistic research is based on immersive sound, listening and perception and is mainly influenced by the human voice for embodiment, human-machine interaction and acoustic ecology.
In 2016 she wrote her first work Childhood Reflections for piano and Live Electronics which she presented in December of the same year at the Centre for Television Control in Athens.
In the following two years she attended composition courses at the Greek National Theatre workshops with K. Selamsis where she wrote and performed the works Bruits and Prelude Dream.
In February 2022, she graduated with a Master’s degree in Electroacoustic Composition at the HfK Bremen with Professor Kilian Schwoon. There she developed sound installations and interdisciplinary projects. Her works have been presented at “next_generation” at “Zentrum für Kunst und Medien”, at the “Long Night of Music” in Oldenburg (2020,2021) and in Bremen (2021) at the Greek Electroacoustic Days University of Ioannina (2021), in the “6th Acoustic Oikology Conference” in the Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki hosted by the Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology and in the Spanish radio RTVE. One of her most recent compositions was selected in a competition for the 30th anniversary CD of the DEGEM and was presented in the ceremony concert at ZKM in Karlsruhe.
A very significant moment was when she played together with the famous flutist Roberto Fabricciani the piece by Bruno Maderna Musica su due dimensioni (Version 1958) für Flöte und Tonband in a concert organized by the Atelier Neue Musik on the initiative of Kilian Schwoon.
(Worpswede, 5 th of November 2021)
In October 2022 she won a scholarship to Mallorca, where she travelled, recorded for a week the soundscapes of the island and on her return she created a sound map which she presented at Kulturwerkstatt westend from 4-24 November. She also participated in the autumn Project Cities and Memory composing a piece for Tel Aviv.
After graduation she created the group Noisy Waves with which she organizes electroacoustic music concerts with works by women composers, she works permanently as a sound engineer with Culture Connects and gives piano and voice lessons at the Musik Schule in Bremen.
In January 2024 she took part in the Tape Music Festival in San Francisco.
She is a member of DEGEM (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik), REM and HELMCA (Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association).