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MARGARETA SVENSSON RIGGS

ABOUT

“Margareta - a Swedish born beauty with a voice and personality to match.”

- Las Vegas Entertainment Today 

 

      “Jackpot in Las Vegas - Margareta is a success on the Las Vegas Strip” (Jackpot i Las Vegas - Margareta gör succé på stans största kasinon) 

- Expressen 

 

“She is the star to the stars” (Hon är stjärnornas stjärna)

- Hallands Nyheter 

 

Margareta Svensson Riggs is a singer, pianist, songwriter, actress and television personality, and her performance career includes more than 6000 engagements in Europe and the United States, and she has opened seven major casinos and hotels in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Her audiences include celebrities and world leaders such as Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Margaret Thatcher to name a few. Together with her husband Seth Riggs, Margareta Svensson Riggs is also a trusted voice teacher to superstars as diverse as Stevie Wonder, Brian Wilson, and M.Shadows-Avenge Sevenfold, and she was one of the expert judges on CBS' global talent show "The World's Best."

 

Already as a five-year-old Margareta did her first public performance singing solo at a Red Cross Christmas Fair in her hometown Tångaberg, outside Varberg on the west coast of Sweden. Earlier that year Swedish pop group ABBA had won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, UK, and Margareta knew what she wanted to be. Margareta's mother, who was in charge of the young Red Cross singers, was a registered nurse and brought Margareta along to sing for the patients at the hospital where she worked. At home Margareta played the piano, the guitar, any other instrument that happened to lay around, and the jump rope serviced as a microphone. When old enough to start, the public after-hours music school became Margareta's second home. Over a ten-year-period it gave her a thorough music education.

 

In her early teens, Margareta would take her guitar and get on a bus to go two hours away from home to engage in street singing. Margareta says; “I was really shy, so I didn't dare to stay in the little town where everyone knew me, but I did love it. Later I have realized it was also the best school when it comes to learning how to create, excite and connect with an audience."

 

Margareta’s performances moved rapidly from the streets to indoor venues. 

 

At eighteen, Margareta boarded Portuguese cruise ship MS Funchal as a singer-pianist and a headliner, and from there on she performed throughout Sweden and Europe. While playing Gothia Towers in Gothenburg,Frank Sinatra was performing next-door at Scandinavium. After the concert the Sinatra band came to see Margareta. Sinatra-drummer, Gregg Field, liked Margareta’s original music and invited her to come to Los Angeles to record.

As a singer-pianist Margareta has opened five casino resorts in Las Vegas. National, daily, Swedish newspaper Expressen wrote "Jackpot in Las Vegas". In 1999, Svensson opened Mandalay Bay alongside Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti, The Venetian Las Vegas where she had her own act at La Scena, The Resort at Summerlin (now known as JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort and Spa,) in the year 2000 The Aladdin (now known as Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino,) and in 2005 Steve Wynn recruited her to open Wynn Las Vegas. She has held engagements at numerous other Las Vegas casinos and resorts, including MGM Grand Las Vegas, Bellagio, The Mirage, Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, Bally's Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas. 

Margareta has also performed and held resident engagements at among other places The Grand Hotel Stockholm Sweden, The Dorchester, London, UK, The Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge, The Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and Montage Beverly Hills and she has traveled the world both as a headliner as well as a piano-singer. Audiences include royalties, world leaders, Nobel Prize Laureates, captains of industry and celebrities such as Robert De Niro, Sir Paul McCartney, Whoopi Goldberg, Lionel Richie, Chevy Chase, Dolly Parton, BB King, Warren Beatty, Sir Tom Jones, Kiss and Margaret Thatcher to name a few. 
           Having heard Margareta after receiving the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Ferid Murad M.D/P.H.D, says, “Margareta was an artist that fully matched and complimented the elite company surrounding her… with her beautiful voice and classy persona.”

Margareta’s extensive career as a singer-pianist and performer, led to a lead on the fifth season of Svenska Hollywoodfruar broadcast on TV3 Sweden in the fall of 2012, with re-runs every year following. Season 5 had the highest ratings of the 13 seasons, (source MMS.se,) and season 5 is claimed to have saved the network according to trade magazines. Svenska Hollywoodfruar features Margareta both as a singer, pianist, performer, songwriter and recording artist, as well as a vocal coach.                                     


Margareta is trained as an actor/dancer at Harvard University, Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) and Calle Flygare Teaterskola (Stockholm, Sweden.)

In 2019, Margareta was one of the 50 international expert judges on the new global talent competition show The World's Best from reality TV heavyweights Mark Burnett and Mike Darnell, on CBS. Headlining was James Corden as host, and Drew Barrymore , RuPaul and Faith Hill as American judges. "The Wall of the World" panel consisted of noteworthy names from all realms of entertainment. Margareta is the first Swede to be featured as a judge on an American reality talent show.

 

Margareta Svensson Riggs has become an expert within vocal technique and is known for her discoveries. She defines singing in short as “the energizing, managing, shaping and directing of air.” She is the trusted voice teacher to legendary singers and superstars such as Stevie Wonder, Michael Bolton, Brian Wilson and M.Shadows among others. She works together with her husband, renowned voice teacher to the stars, Seth Riggs, author of “Singing for the Stars,” and founder of “Speech Level Singing,” known for clients like Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Natalie Cole, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ray Charles to name a few. The two met when Margareta came to Seth Riggs as a client in the mid-1990s. In 2008 they became a couple, and four years later, in 2012, they married and their daughter Samantha was born. Seth Riggs originally trained Margareta as a singer and later also as a teacher. Once teaching together, they embarked on a groundbreaking journey of deepening and developing the Svensson Riggs vocal technique and their understanding and methods for correct, effective and healthy singing to benefit their clients, where many are a Who’s Who of superstar artists. Together they also conduct vocal workshops and master classes around the world.

 

Margareta continues to write, record and perform her original music. 

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