Maryanna Sokol

The daughter of a jazz-turned-classical guitarist mother and jazz trumpetist composer-turned-piano technician father who met at acclaimed Berklee College of Music, Maryanna rarely, if ever, entertained any option but to grow up to be a career musician. Her early childhood was spent studying piano, violin, voice, and guitar, and figuring out creative ways to get out of practicing for lessons. She and her brother also provided BGVs and cuteness factor to rock concerts her parents gave at local churches, shelters, and other venues in the Houston area. She composed her first music at the age of 3, when her parents encouraged every vocal improvisation and dabble on the piano as a “song.” Her efforts proved fruitful soon enough when she won a local composition contest at the age of 10 for an acapella song filled with precocious, if cringe-worthy, metaphorical references to freedom through art and imagination.

After an obligatory but healthy obsession with The Beatles at a young age, followed by an active junior high and high school career in choir, orchestra, musical theater, and various local performing groups, Maryanna attended Southern Methodist University and Sam Houston State University in TX, where she received a degree in Music Therapy with a minor in voice. In pursuit of her education, she re-visited the art of songwriting, soon composing catchy and clever songs that appealed to educators and students as well as hard-drinking, honest folk in bars.

With influences ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Regina Spektor to the ever-growing hype over the impending end of the world, Maryanna writes songs that weave the unabashed soulfulness so often found in the classic Americana singer-songwriter style with discriminating pop sensibilities. Her lyrical style and powerful voice allot for songs that deftly guide the listener through moments of pure delicacy to brazen emotion.

Her debut album, “Landfill,” was produced by Andrew Futral (The Age of Rockets) and mixed and mastered by Dan Romer (Ingrid Michaelson, Jenny Owen Youngs, Bess Rogers). It was officially released May 4, 2010, and is now available to the greatest expanses of the internet universe.