Artist Of The Week 11/14/12-11/21/12

Tanja Maritsa 

With a name like Tanja Maritsa one might guess that the London based singer songwriter, has some exotic connections. Indeed they might be even more exotic than you first imagine....

Born to an English mother and Croatian father, Tanja spent the first five formidable years of her life living in Paris, France. It's no irony then that her first spoken words were spoken in the language of love - French! Her early years growing up in Paris were extremely vital to her development as an artist and as is evident from her latest album 'Fragile', these images and sounds remain seared into her soul, and to this day are a vital part of her compositions.

In 2005 Tanja formed her own jazz folk covers band with guitarist Paul Sogaard, performing in jazz venues in the UK and New York. 2008 saw the release of Tanja's debut album 'Child in My Heart', produced by the legendary arranger Richard Niles and featuring the remarkable piano instrumentation of Gwilym Simcock. Originally intended to be an album of covers, after hearing her own material, Niles strongly encouraged Tanja to write more and ‘thats how I caught the writing bug’ !

Delighted by the response to 'Child in My Heart', Tanja was eager to get back into the studio and start recording her second album ‘Fragile’. Tanja once again teamed up with Niles, as well as Gwilym Simcock, not to mention Richard Cottle, Sam Burgess and Gary O’toole. Also featuring on the album as a special guest, is the highly esteemed oud player Naseer Shaama, who Tanja first met on her travels to Egypt 'I was thrilled when Naseer said he would join us and we recorded the album in London and Cairo – its great to have a collaboration of international artists' . Tanja is currently working on more songs for her third album !, inspired by new beginnings and dreams... :