About Anya Marina
Anya Marina Kroth is an American singer-songwriter, based in New York City. Her music has been featured on several television shows, including Grey's Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother, The Real World, Castle, United States of Tara, Gossip Girl, Batwoman, The Vampire Diaries, and Supernatural. Her songs have been featured on the soundtrack of The Twilight Saga: New Moon soundtrack and 13 Reasons Why Season 2 soundtrack.
Marina was born Anya Marina Kroth in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was raised in Cupertino, California, as the elder of two sisters. Her parents are both university professors, who teach psychology and Russian literature. She moved to Los Angeles as an aspiring actress and attended classes at the British American Drama Academy and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She has acted on television and in films . She returned to Cupertino to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree in writing and linguistics from Santa Clara University, where she appeared in music video for Faith No More and episodes of The Mr. T Experience, Unsolved Mysteries and others. In college, she worked as a DJ on KSCU and was the lead singer of the Bay Area band Andalusia.
After graduating in 1997, Anya appeared on The Howard Stern Show as "Anya the Au Pair", a woman wanting to be the au pair for Stern's children. After that appearance, she was hired by Mike Halloran at radio station XHRM-FM in San Diego, California, then at Y107 in Los Angeles, Premium Radio in North San Diego County, California, and finally at KBZT FM 94/9 for six years.
In San Diego Marina played her first open mic night and began to write her own songs. She developed a live show that included anecdotes and frank stories told between songs, and continued working as a DJ on the radio in San Diego while playing around town and, later, touring. Her recorded debut was a five-song EP called Exercises in Racketeering, which eventually led to a full-length album, Miss Halfway, which was released January 25, 2005. Anya subsequently opened for Jason Mraz, Juliana Hatfield and Rhett Miller among others. She was named one of the "Best Unsigned" acts by the San Diego CityBeat. Miss Halfway was produced by Scott Russo, the frontman for rockers Unwritten Law, and Peter King from The Surfers. The record eventually earned a San Diego Music Award for Best Recording.
On January 20, 2009, Marina released her second album, Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II. The album was produced by Brian Karscig from Louis XIV and Britt Daniel from Spoon. The music video for the album's first single, "Move You", was directed by Scott Coffey. On June 8, 2009, the video for "All The Same To Me", directed by Josh Forbes, premiered exclusively on it.
In the summer of 2009, Anya was nominated for three San Diego Music Awards: Artist of the Year, Album of the Year , and Song of the Year . On September 10, 2009, "Move You" won the award for Song of the Year, beating out fellow nominees including Jack Tempchin and Jason Mraz.
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