Vanessa Kourtesi
Vanessa Kourtesi is a musician, singer, songwriter and educator originally from Athens and currently based in Rotterdam. One of her first musical influences is rebetiko and Greek traditional music. She has performed in many Athenian music scenes and collaborated with many musicians of the genre. Inspired by other musical traditions and feeling the need to explore music more and search for her artistic identity, in 2017 she studied at the World Music department of Codarts-University of the Arts in Rotterdam, specializing in singing and Eastern Mediterranean music.
The year 2021- 2022 she has been producing her first record with her own compositions "Spending time with Esther", part of her project "I am Esther" which was released in May 2022.
Yiannis Vagianos
Yiannis Vagianos is a Greek Bass Player, Musician and Educator, active in the Dutch Jazz Scene. He has a Master of Music (Jazz Contrabass) from Conservatory van Amsterdam and a Bachelor of Music degree (Jazz Contrabass) from Codarts University of the Arts.
Born and raised in the capital of Greece, after finishing his engineering studies in Greece, he came in Rotterdam to pursue a Jazz Performance Degree. During his stay in the Netherlands he has been performing all around the country with numerous projects from different styles of music ranging but not limited to traditional jazz, modern jazz, world music, classical music, Turkish music, Latin etc. On top of that, he has done several tours around the world (Western Europe with Merem, Denmark with Codarts Young Talent Big Band, China with CHI Quartet) and is an active studio artist with a wide range of discography.
He is also an active educator, giving private lessons for Double Bass, Bass Guitar, Music Theory and Band Coaching.
Dimitra Metzaki
Dimitra Metzaki was born in 1995 in Corinth, Greece. At the age of 6, she started studying classical piano. Her adventure with oud began when she entered the University of Macedonia, in 2013, and from then on, she focused on oud. Since 2017, she studies at Codarts, in Rotterdam.
She has studied with great teachers such as T.Atzakas, S.Sinopoulos, A.Papadimitrakis, N.Rohana. Furthermore, Dimitra has got to play at many festivals and concert halls around the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Greece.
Yiorgos Bereris
Yiorgos Bereris is a pianist and composer, originated from Athens and located in Rotterdam. Since an early age he has been performing in Greece and up until now he has presented his projects and works in festivals and venues in Europe and USA.
He holds a BA in Jazz Piano Performance (Ionian University) under the guidance of George Kontrafouris and currently he is finalizing his MA studies in Codarts Conservatory with the topic of Piano Taksim.
Ektoras Remsak
Ektoras Remsak is a drummer born in Athens (1996) to a Greek-Polish environment.
He started studying classical piano for a few years, but eventually changed into drums.
In 2014 he joined Ionian University of Corfu, graduating in 2020 with the 'jazz drums performance' degree. There he studied with Billy Pod and Eric Ineke. His mentor, George Kontrafouris, asked him to join the ‘Kontrafouris Baby Trio’ in 2016 with which they toured at festivals and clubs of Greece.
From that point he is performing, teaching and recording in the music scene of Athens.
He graduated in 2022 as a master researcher from Codarts Rotterdam, jazz department, where he met with ‘Merem’ members.