Vanya Green is a singer and multi-instrumentalist whose music builds upon a long-standing Mediterranean tradition of meeting of East and West. Her voice fuses folk and soul with the subtle ornamentations found in Middle Eastern and Flamenco music.

She was recently nominated for Best Female Vocalist by the 2008 Hollywood Music Awards for her original composition "Watercolor Love" and has been recognized as one of the top ten artists in The International World of Music Awards.

Growing up in a home surrounded by music from South African jazz to Bach, Vanya began to perform from an early age. Her journey into breaking boundaries in musical styles began at the renowned Fundacion de Flamenco, in Seville, Spain where she was awarded a vocal scholarship.

In her audition, she took the accompanist’s guitar and played John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.” Upon entering the program she began an exchange with internationally acclaimed flamenco singer Calixto Sanchez in which she taught him jazz vocal technique, while he in turn, taught her to sing like a real flamenca. After one performance, she was approached by Jose Luis Postigo who lauded her authentic Sephardic voice. He introduced her to the owner of the Casa de Memoria flamenco tablao where she began to perform Sephardic music in the old Juderia, or Jewish ghetto.

She then was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for voice in Israel where she continued to perform and research the beautiful and haunting melodies of Middle Eastern music.

Here in Los Angeles, she has been collaborating with well recognized recording artists, including oud master Naser Musa (Beyonce, Shakira).

She recently recorded several of the traditional Sephardic songs featuring Musa, percussionist Satnam Ramgotra (Sting, Macy Grey, Beck, Black Eyed Peas), bassist Miles Jay (Youssou N'Dour) and fretless guitar and sitar player Paul Livingstone (Ozomatli), among others. With the help of viruoso violinist Hubert Pralitz and collaboration with producer Deddy Tzur, Vanya worked to preserve the soul of the tunes, while making them relevant to a modern audience.

Through this musical journey, Vanya has discovered how the most subtle and simple melody can permeate and change us. As such, she obtained a Masters degree in music therapy and is building a recording studio at UCLA Medical Center to allow children afflicted with cancer to join in this process of creating music.

Through it all, she has continued to write her own music, which serves as a journal of her experiences. She is back in the studio again working on some more tunes. Please join her in this journey and take a listen.

"Duende is a power and not a behavior, it is a struggle and not a concept. I have heard an old master guitarist say: ‘Duende is not in the throat; duende surges up from the soles of the feet.’ Which means it is not a matter of ability, but of real live form; of blood; of ancient culture; of creative action."                   Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca