Biography

Marte Bjørkmann was born in Bergen, but grew up in Asker. After finishing college, Marte studied theater at Romerike folk school. She lived in Mexico and later in Barcelona where she released four cds as the artist Sunniva. In a period of two years she toured regularly in Spain as Sunniva. At the same time she had a jazz trio that played at bars in Barcelona.

Marte has her musical education from different schools: bachelor in classical music from the University of Tromsø, department of music, one year of opera studies at Operastudio 67 in Stockholm and her master degree in classical singing from the University of Trondheim. Her specialty in her master is Spanish and Latin-American music. Marte has also studied Spanish and French at University and is fluent in five languages.

Beside classical music, Marte Bjørkmann was the vocalist in the salsaband La Orquesta Salsa de Tromsø from 2006 to 2008.

Marte Bjørkmann has had concerts in Norway and abroad. Above all she has had many concerts in Spain. In February 2013 she presented Spanish and Latin-American music in the exotic island of Svalbard together with the pianist Hedda Hansen Berg.

Apart from the music, Marte has many interests. The most important one is animal welfare and animals in general. She has been at the board of the organization Dyrebeskyttelsen Norge for several years and has worked as a volunteer with homeless cats. Horse riding has been a big part of her life from the age of seven, and she also has an interest for dancing, yoga, languages and travels to different countries and cultures.