Mariam the Believer

Mariam Wallentin is an artist with a big heart, as thoughtful as she is musically bold. An Alice Coltrane for our time. Spirituality meets music that makes us feel and think.

With musical roots in both improvisation and pop and soul, Wallentin’s career has crossed a number of diverse territories; she is one half of Wildbirds & Peacedrums and one of the creative forces behind the jazz collective Fire! Orchestra. She has worked with bands such as Deerhoof and Konono no 1, with choirs, string ensembles and symphony orchestras, sung for Björk and taken part in experimental operas by both noise musician Ben Frost and in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone at English National Opera. She has collaborated musically with Damien Rice and Leslie Feist, won the Manifest Award and Jazzkatten Award, and been nominated for the Grammis several times.

With her uncompromising approach to music, Wallentin started her project Mariam The Believer in 2012, to focus her expression in a more pop-oriented project. Mariam The Believer has released three acclaimed full-length albums on her own label, Repeat Until Death. She has an ongoing series of EPs called “Instant Creativity”. Her third fifth EP in the series has now been recorded and will soon be ready for release: “The Wishing Well EP 2”. Music from Wallentin’s stage performance of the same name, about longing and an exploration of life’s fragile moments and the ever-evolving nature of existence, performed on the record by five voices and synthesisers. Pop music meets improvisation in a poetic flow, and on stage tonight in an especially intimate and close-up setting: a singer, a musician, here and now. Mariam is an artist who dares and moves you.