Athena (Andreadis)

Athena Andreadis (artist name: Athena) is an Anglo-Greek musician, singer and songwriter born in London to Greek parents. In 2008, she was featured in a British television documentary called ATHENA: MY MUSIC .

Early life and education

Athena and her family moved back to Greece when she was three, she grew up in Thessaloniki and moved back to the UK when she was 18. Her passion for music and singing from an early as well as writing and acting won her awards at school (Anatolia, American College of Thessaloniki) for both poetry and prose, acting and singing in bands, but was urged by her family to study business with a view to joining the family business and helping her father in tourism.

She studied at the University of Bath, where she earned a degree in Business Administration. During an internship in New York for the advertising agency Young & Rubicam, she met her first singing teacher and mentor Joyce Suskind through the Juilliard School of Music, and with her encouragement went on to be accepted and graduate from London’s Trinity College of Music with two post-graduate master's degrees in classical singing and jazz voice.

Career

In 2006, she released an EP called Snapshot. She performed at music festivals including Womad,^[2] performed on live radio including BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour,^[3] Her music has appeared on compilations and it has been on radio playlists.^[4] In 2007, she released her debut album Breathe With Me. She was featured in an hour-long documentary aired on Channel 5 (UK) in April 2008.^[5].

She has collaborated, recorded, performed and written songs with several internationally acclaimed and award-winning artists and songwriters including Eric Appapoulay (Natasha Bedingfield, Cat Stevens), Richard Causon (Ryan Adams, Ethan Johns, The Kings of Leon, Rufus Wainwright), Geoff Martyn (Travis), Chaz Jankel (Blockheads), Marti Pellow (Wet Wet Wet), David Saw (Carly Simon, Ben Taylor), Adam Levy (Norah Jones), Mike Rowe (Sheryl Crowe), Ben Trigg (Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight), Darren Berry (La Roux), Chesney Hawkes, Richard Cassell (Plan B), Ethan Allen (Ben Harper), Miles Zuniga (Fastball), Tobias Froberg (Ane Brun, Lisa Ekdahl), Leslie Satcher and Rebecca Martin. Athena co-wrote "You're Older" for Rebecca Martin's album "Growing Season" for which they won the Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Album at the Independent Music Awards (USA).

Athena’s songs have been released either on her own records, or on other artists' records in the UK, USA and internationally, including Fastball’s “White Lies” (Angelie), Adam Levy’s award winning “Washing Day” (Breathe With Me), and her co-write Eoghan Colgan “You Give Me Hope” made it on several US TV series including Mike & Molly (CBS), Smash (NBC) and Chicago Fire (NBC) as well an English film Love/Loss

She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Discography

Breathe With Me

Breathe With Me is Athena's debut album, released in 2007 on Embraceable Records and produced by George Andreou and Joe Boyd. The BBC's Morag Reavley calls it "Intimate, thoughtful, original."^[1] Her songs aired on BBC Radio 2 (Janice Long Live Acoustic Sessions) and on BBC Radio 3 (Andy Kershaw, Janice Long, Charlie Gillett) and on local stations in the United Kingdom. Her first UK tour was sponsored by the Arts Council of England and fRoots magazine.

The track "Breathe Again" was used for a TV ad campaign for the charity Concern Worldwide in the UK & Ireland (2010 - 2013).

In 2008 a bonus track version of Breathe With Me was re-released with 2 extra songs to coincide with the airing of the hour-long documentary My Music: Athena aired on Channel 5 (UK) in April 2008.^]

Peeling Apples

‘Peeling Apples’ her second album was produced by Swedes Magnus Frykberg and Tobias Froberg (Ane Brun and Lisa Ekdahl), and co-writers on the record include Richard Causon (Ryan Adams, Ethan Johns, The Kings of Leon, Rufus Wainwright), and Jamie Hartman (Joss Stone, Anastacia) features on a duet.

Further to headlining London Bush Hall, her first single, Finding England featured on the cover album of Word magazine in May 2012 and was selected for the Visit England campaign to coincide with the London Olympics 2012.

In Greece the record was released by EMI and Finding England was playlisted on 6 radio stations. Athena teamed up with Starbucks in Greece and Cyprus record raising money for the charity Kinoniko Pantopolio.

One of the songs All Over Again made it into the indie film Nomads (USA/Mexico) with Lucy Liu directed by Ricardo Benet .

Giini Aggeli

She also released her debut album with Sony in Greece, and her second record with EMI, and in 2014 she released a Greek-language record ‘Giini Aggeli (Earth Angels) co-produced by Giorgos Andreou (Tsaligopoulou, Dalaras, Vitali, Alkinoos Ioannidis) featuring Lina Nikolakopoulou (Haris Alexiou, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Alkistis Protopsalti) with UNIVERSAL- EMI.

Ready for the Sun

Athena recorded her first U.S. album Ready For The Sun at The Village Studios in Los Angeles with producer Ethan Allen (Ben Harper, Sheryl Crowe). Musicians on the record include Deron Johnson (Miles Davis), Jimmy Paxson (Stevie Nicks), Michael Ward (Ben Harper) and Jonathan Flaugher (Ryan Adams). 3 time Grammy award winner Kevin Reagan is the artistic director. She released behind the scenes video (click here). The record will be released in three parts with the part 1 being released in May 2016

One of the songs from the record Stronger has been placed at the end credits of US movie Swing Away directed by Michael A. Nickles.

Starbucks

Starbucks picked Athena to be their exclusive artist in 2014-2016 and her albums sold in all stores (Greece & Cyprus) raising money for a charity helping Greek families in need during the financial crisis (Kinoniko Pantopoilio) as well as raising awareness during in-store performances with Eric Appapoulay.

Yiannis Markopoulos

Classic Greek composer Yiannis Markopoulos chose Athena to sing on his long awaited new record also featuring George Dalaras.

Save the Children and other charity work

Athena featured singing on the Save The Children TV ad in the UK with her version of ‘Silent Night’ winter 2012-2013 and again in 2014-2015, as well as on the TV commercial campaign in Germany winter 2015-2016.

References

• ΑΘΗΝΑ ΑΝΔΡΕΑΔΗ Ολα ξεκίνησαν από τη διοίκηση επιχειρήσεων [ATHENS ANDREADI All started from business administration] (in Greek). 2010-09-19. Retrieved 2014-05-01.  (Google Translate)

External links

• Official website