Myrto Ticof was born and raised in Athens. She graduated from the Music High School of Pallini, where she studied byzantine, traditional greek and classical music, from the Music Studies Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti e Conservazione dei Beni Artistici of Ca’Foscari University of Venice (Italy). Meanwhile, she studied classical piano and theory of music. Specialized in music pedagogy, she studied further the Kodaly method at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet (Hungary) as well as Orff and Dalcroze methods. She continued her studies in jazz piano and theory at the Muse.gr in Athens and at the Swiss Jazz School of the University of Bern (Switzerland). During her studies she attended various seminars in dance and movement improvisation.
Since 2002, she has been working as a music teacher in preschool and since 2007 she is tenured in elementary school level. She has taught music theory at the Ziridi Conservatory and Children’s Choir under the cultural direction of the composer Nikos Kypourgos (2007-2013). Discography: “The near and the beyond” (N. Kypourgos, Universal 2009), “The return of the lazy dragon” (G. Hatzipieris, Universal 2009)
At the year 2010, she has co-founded together with the museum educator-writer Alkisti Halikia the art workshop for children “Akoukoita: innovative educational programmes on art” comprised of educational programmes aiming at developing children’s creativity through art. www.akoukoita.gr
Since 2014, she works for the Onassis Cultural Centre at the educational programme “Contemporary Art: First you live, then you understand” Educational programmes SGT 2014-2015 (see pages 10-11) Educational programmes SGT 2015-2016 (see pages 14-15)
She participates at various music groups as a pianist. Discography: “Tragoudakia Galaktos” (A. Halikia, M. Halkoutsaki, Legend 2008), “Glyko proi” (M. Rizou, Phonograph 2013), “Exo apo esena” (G. Zacharopoulos, Digital album, 2015).
Myrto combines elements of improvisation in music and dance while teaching. Greece is a crossroad of different cultures (Europe, Asia, Arab Africa) and this has influenced her orientations regarding both her education on music and music teaching. During her studies she came across with various music teaching methods and improvisation methods taught in the form of jazz music. What she has found as the most intriguing feature is the powerful effect that all the above have on young pupils. Therefore her aim is to provide a synthesis of different methods, adopting the main advantages of each one of them. She believes that through the music language, children with different cultures may come together and become responsible citizens of the world.