Marianthi Koilia is a mandolinist and PhD Candidate in the Department of Music Studies at the University of Ioannina. She teaches mandolin in secondary education.
During the academic years 2024–2025 and 2025–2026, she was seconded to the Department of Music Studies at the University of Ioannina, where she taught mandolin performance, Rhythmic Education I, and music ensembles. Since the academic year 2026–2027, she has been seconded to the Department of Music Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens for three years. In 2021, she was awarded a Remunerated Scholarship for supplementary mandolin teaching at the Department of Music Studies of the University of Ioannina.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Folk and Traditional Music of the Technological Educational Institute of Epirus, with a specialization in mandolin, as well as Master’s degrees in “Special Education in Education” (Frederick University – University of Nicosia) and in “Performance and Interpretation of Traditional Music” from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with a specialization in mandolin.
Her research focuses on the urban popular music traditions of the Greek-speaking world during the Belle Époque and the interwar period, with particular emphasis on the mandolin, musical mobility and networks, and ethnomusicological approaches to musical performance and cultural memory.
Research and Academic Activities
She participated in the research project “Collection and Digitization of the Musical Tradition of the Municipality of Northern Tzoumerka” (2020–2022).
She has also participated in several research and cultural heritage initiatives supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, particularly in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage. These include “Rebetiko: Roots, Places, Instruments,” submitted in 2022 by the Association of Asia Minor Greeks of Thebes, within which she taught mandolin, produced educational videos, and delivered a lecture on the presence of the instrument in Smyrna.
In 2025, she participated in the project “The Mandolin in the Music of the Greek-Speaking World: Estudiantinas, Musical Networks and Cosmopolitanism,” submitted by the non-profit organization “Music and Cultural Networks.” Within the framework of the project, she organized a two-day mandolin masterclass at the Department of Music Studies of the University of Ioannina, participated in a series of online academic lectures on urban popular music and the mandolin, and served as academic advisor for the musical performance “Spyros Peristeris: Travel Diary to America,” presented by students of the Department of Music Studies of the University of Ioannina and in collaboration with the “Nikolaos Lavdas” Athens Mandolinata.
She is currently participating in the 2026 project “Aspects of the Mandolin in the Greek-Speaking World: Urban Popular Musics, Musical Syncretism, Cosmopolitanism,” submitted by the non-profit organization “Music and Cultural Networks.”
Selected Publications
Sarris, C., & Koilia, M. (2021). “Music and Musical Networks in the Aegean: The Case of the Tsambouna in Naxos.” In Vasilis Frangoulopoulos (ed.), 6th Scientific Conference “Naxos through the Ages”, Damariōnas, Naxos, 30 August–2 September 2018, pp. 1469–1477.
Koilia, M. (2023). “Through Women’s Eyes: Music and Memory in Northern Tzoumerka and the Katsanochoria.” In Giorgos Kokkōnis (ed.), Folk Music Traditions in the Municipality of Northern Tzoumerka. Municipality of Northern Tzoumerka, pp. 115–125.
