Described as a major cabaret force (Bay Windows) and a consummate interpreter (Theater Mirror), Sophia Bilides holds the 2005 IRNE Award for Best Female Cabaret Performer. She was named one of Bay Windows' Top Ten Cabaret Performers of 2004 (sharply comic, touchingly dramatic, hitting her intended mark every time) and reviewed in Cabaret Scenes as delightfully eclectic, highly polished, and mesmerizing. Her lyricist tributes include Witchcraft: The Lyrics Of Carolyn Leigh, endorsed by the Leigh Estate, and Make Someone Happy: The Lyrics of Comden & Green, which earned her a 2003 IRNE Award Nomination, and was named one of Bay Windows' Top Ten Cabaret Events of 2002 (Bilides spins gold with this show). Her seasonal celebrations include The Summer Knows, one of the Ten Best Cabaret Shows of 2005 (Edge Boston.com), and Winter Warm, as bracing as a shot of brandy (Boston Globe), now on CD and named one of the Top Ten CDs of 2007 (Cabaret Hotline Online). She appears regularly at Scullers in Boston, and her New York debut at Danny's Skylight Room earned her a 2007 MAC Award Nomination. Her show Putting It Together: The State of the Arts looks at the challenges & rewards of creative & performing artists. Her upcoming CD, Heart's Desire, features songs of hopes and dreams by contemporary songwriters. Her newest show, A Change Of Sky, will celebrate her 10th year at Scullers with songs about moving forward, on June 16. Equal to any of the finest cabaret artists in the country today, Bilides consistently renders a brilliant performance. (Cabaret Hotline Online)

Sophia Bilides is also the foremost practitioner of the Greek singing style known as Smyrneika (Boston Globe), the cabaret tradition of the Greek Asia Minor refugees from the 1930s & 40s, rich with intricate melodies, sensual rhythms, and lyrics of love, nostalgia, and the celebration of life. Accompanying herself on santouri (hammered dulcimer) and zilia (finger cymbals), with master percussionist Mike Gregian on doumbeleki (drum) and Tom Babbin on kythara (guitar), she translates and performs every song with the goal of transporting audiences to the convivial, intimate atmosphere of the Anatolian cafe-aman. As a nationally recognized Greek vocalist, she has performed the music of her heritage in concerts throughout North America, including New York's Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts and the Folk Festivals of The National Council For The Traditional Arts. She was featured in the National Endowment For The Arts' Singing Traditions Tour, and is a three-time Finalist for the Traditional Artist Fellowship (2010, 2008, 2006) of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In her CD, Greek Legacy, her superb voice is heard to excellent effect in this fascinating singing style that straddles the cultural divide between East and West (Folk Roots Magazine). She brings to life a musical heritage that still speaks from and to the heart. (International Greek Folklore Society)

A second-generation Greek-Italian-American, Sophia Bilides was born in 1954 and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, absorbing the musical influences of her father's Permata (Asia Minor) Greek community, her mother's Neapolitan Italian family, and the Broadway musicals which came through town at the Shubert Theater. Classical vocal studies led to a degree in Voice and Music Education from New England Conservatory, after which she chose to focus on Greek and American cabaret. A resident of rural Western Massachusetts for 20 years, where she directed the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society and hosted Valley Folk, a program of world music on WFCR Radio, she relocated to the Boston area in '97 with her husband Tom Babbin. Their family includes American Eskimo dogs, first Bianca, and now two rescued pups, Roza and Rita, who enjoy hiking, canoeing, and visits to the National Seashore with their humans.