Katerina Koutouzi hails from Kalymnos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea, where she grew up to the beat of the local traditional music. She comes from a musical family. To this day her great grandfather, violinist Theofilos Magriplis, is celebrated as the music master of the Dodecanese archipelago, inspiring generations of musicians. Her grandparents sang the island songs and especially enjoyed chanting Byzantine psalms each day. Her father loved to invite local musicians to his house and sing traditional island songs with them. He played the harmonica and was fond of listening to the music of Theodorakis and Xilouris in his car. Katerina’s mother played the accordion and wrote poetry. Katerina taught herself the accordion and learned the old Greek songs her mother played. She spent her teenage years in Athens, where she sang with school choirs and provided accompaniment on the accordion and piano. Katerina soon fell in love with dance, and was introduced to the beautiful music of Hatzidakis and Karaindrou through her first dance teacher, Eleanna Vidali. In Athens she also discovered the beauty of minimalist music and started listening to Wim Mertens, among others. At 19 Katerina moved to London, where she studied dance and choreography at the Laban Centre of Movement and Dance. She loved her choreography studies and firmly believes that in the creation of both dance and music, the same creative process is at work. Her dance studies exposed Katerina to a slew of contemporary music. She went on to explore dance and electronic music, and studied music technology.

Katerina Koutouzi lives and works in London as a musician, writing, producing and performing her own work.