Semeli PAPAVASILEIOU

Semeli Papavasileiou was born in Athens. She started singing at a very young age and participating in traditional fiestas, because of her father who is a bouzouki player and her grandmother a traditional vocalist. She started cello lessons at the age of 8 and received her diploma in 2015 as a student of Marina Kislitsina. She is also a self-taught rembetiko guitar player. When she graduated the Alimos Musical Highschool, she started working as a traditional musician and vocalist with many famous Greek artists while simultaneously takıng theater lessons in the Drama school of ‘Municipal Theatre of Patras’. She participated in musical/theatrical performances as both a musician and actress but mostly as a Rembetiko vocalist in concerts. Between the years 2016 – 2018 she received vocal lessons from the vocalists Loukia Palaiologou and Larissa Iasonidou. In 2019 she also did speech training with the vocalist and speech trainer Nana Trevor. Semeli is also able to play basic bouzouki, ‘baglamas’ and oud. She speaks good English and basic Turkish and French.

Photo credit: Andreas Makris