About Aggeliki Toubanaki

 
Aggeliki Toubanaki (PhD)
Vocalist, performer, producer, sound experimentalist, voice teacher

aggelikitoubanaki.com

Aggeliki Toubanaki considers the human voice to be the most expressive and the richest in terms of musical nuances instrument. Using voice, she improvises, she experiments, she expresses herself and communicates, having a strong belief in artistic expression that lies beyond musical borders and social norms.
Alongside her musical studies she completed a long cycle of scientific research – she has been awarded a PhD (Distinction) in Cellular Biology by the Medical School of the University of Athens. The deeper relationship between science and art is what she considers to be her basic pillar of inspiration and expression, and hence semantically an experientially explores the potentials of the human voice through improvisation, through artistic expression and through the interdisciplinary route.
 
RESEARCH- THERAPY:
She is a member of the Interdisciplinary Voice Group “Voice Mentoring”, a group whose aim is to design treatment and rehabilitation for patients with vocal conditions.
Aggeliki Toubanaki designed and is now coordinating the social educational program of the National Theatre entitled “The NBG breathe”. This free online program-workshop is related to the re-training of the breathing process, through vocal expression and singing, for persons recovering from Covid-19, and who still suffer from dyspnea and the subsequent anxiety this brings about. The program is currently being realized in collaboration with the regular post-covid clinics of the 4th University Pathology Clinic of the University General Hospital “Attikon”, the Pneumonology and Respiratory Failure 1st Clinic of Intensive Care of the General Hospital “Evaggelismos” and the 3rd University Pathology Clinic of EKPA, Sotiria General Hospital.
 
In 2006 she started researching the “extended vocal techniques” studying traditional vocalisms and contemporary vocal improvisation; she also experimented with looping.
Since 2014 she has been involved in orchestration mix of both natural and electric sound. This came about through the creation of the innovative project “Drums Voice Jazztronica Duet” (Nu Jazz / Practice based research project) with drummer Ilias Doumanis. The two musicians detect and extend the limits of natural sound and simultaneously design a multi-levelled sound environment through electric means and programs. They are currently recording their first record featuring personal compositions.
 
  
TEACHING:
–       She teaches “Voice Technique”, “Jazz Improvisation” and “Music Theory” at the Filippos Nakas Conservatoire
–       “Musa” (Musical System of Acting) She collaborates with Director and Acting Coach Sotiris Kramesinis*, also founder of the educational system of theatrical action and theatrical exercise “MUSA” – a holistic approach of vocal exercise, training, actor preparation and role preparation. Aggeliki is responsible for the vocal training of the actor, the safe, effective voice production, the capacity of a variable vocal timbre approach on par with a freedom of expression, cultivation of musicality, the unhindered production of speech, of song and of improvisation.
–       *S. Karamesinis founded the Brazinlian theatre group “Musa cia Teatral” in 2013, founded on the Musa Method, and this group, among other artistic pursuits, created an original theatrical educational program for hundreds of children and adolescents attending the NGO school “Solar meninos de Luz” functioning within the favelas of Cantagalo in Rio De Janeiro.
–       Artventure Camp – She is a member of the camp trainers, an alternative art camp, organized by multiprecussionist, composer and percussion teacher, Petros Kourtis (Golden Tourism Award 2019 &2020).
–       She holds seminars – gives lectures on the topic of “The Multidimensional Role of the Voice” and “Vocal Improvisation”. (1st Trikki ARTience – a conference about the human voice, University of Western Thrace, University of Thessalia, Greek-Australian group Greek Fringe, among others).
–       She organizes “Vocal Circles” (Circle Singing), in the way she was taught by Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon and Bob Stollof in New York, making use of these circles as a means of musical training and human communication. She regularly invites distinguished vocalists from abroad (Christiane Karam, Jay Clayton, among others), holding corresponding seminars and events about the mechanism of vocalization.
 
 
PROJECTS:
Starting off with her training in Jazz Music, and through her research and collection of traditional sounds, rhythms, musical idioms and phonemes, she creates her own personal imprint in interpretation and orchestration.
Beginning in 2005, she is the creator, producer and lead vocalist of a series of different musical projects around themes pertaining to Contemporary Vocal Jazz and World Jazz, that have been successfully presented in Greece and abroad.
 
 
 
COLLABORATIONS:
She has collaborated with: the jazz guitarist and composer Kostas Balazanis, (Half Note, 02/2020), the jazz pianist and composer George Kontrafouris, (11th Panhellenic Conference of PEV, “BIOSCIENCES IN THE 21ST CENTURY – Biology changes Society”, 2018), the composer Christos Leontis (attribute on ERT (National television), 2021), the Jazz pianist and composer Nikolas Anadolis, (8th Jazz in Tinos), Christiane Karam, singer and composer, in charge of the Ethnic Music Department of Berklee College of Music, co-leader in performer Boby Mc Ferrin’s Vocal Circle, creator of the awarded group ZilZALA Ensemble (New York 2015, Zografou festival, 2016), jazz pianist and composer Alekos Orfanos, (tribute to Zappa at Half Note Jazz Club 2014, Jazz Festival – Jazz & Praxis 2014), Maria Christina & the 7 pedals, avant garde electric harpist, experimental duet “Harp & Voice”, the percussionist Onur Il, )Descarga project, Athens 2013), composer Panayyiotis Kalatzopoulos, Jazz Bassist Cameron Brown, (Bassano del Grappa, Italy, 2010).
 
 
ACTIONS:
–       She participates in actions and collaborates with Estia, the Centre of Social Care for people with mental disabilities. She participates in actions organized by the Second Chance School in the Thebes Women’s Prisons, in collaboration with the Support Network for Women in Prison and Women Released from prison.
–       She is an Educator (musical and vocal teaching, choir director) of the humanitarian-educational program Kalesma, an initiative by composer Vasilis Kosta, internationally renowned musician and composer. The aim of this initiative is to improve the everyday lives of the children of “Arc of the World”, by offering a permanent music-educational program of a very high standard for the children of the Ark in Athens, as well as to provide scholarships for further musical studies in the US.

 PRODUCTION COMPANY:
In 2019, Aggeliki Toubanaki and director-researcher and Acting Teacher Sotiris Karamesinis, along with Katerina Karamesins, composer and PhD holder in musical compositions, founded the art company “Musarte”. The aim of this company is to hold educational seminars and workshops of theatrical-musical-vocal praxis as well as the production of Theatre performances, artistic events, whose basic axel is the research of the interstitial-interactive creation, and the impact art has on social and humanitarian sciences.  

 
Official Site: aggelikitoubanaki.com
Aggeliki Toubanaki YouTube Channel
Facebook Page: ToubanakiMusicProjects
info@aggelikitoubanaki.com