Ana-Marija Markovina – piano

Ana-Marija Markovina is an authentic and unconventional artist. The classical music business has become a hard business, but she has never lost sight of the fact that music needs freedom, the desire for the unpredictable and for daring. For her, the person behind the music is always a role model and motivation.

Already at the age of four, the native Croatian, who has been living in Germany since the age of two, wanted to become a pianist. Her piano studies took her to Detmold, Weimar and Berlin. During this time she broadened her perspectives by intensively exploring the history of art, culture and music. She received important impulses – such as the technical perfection of the “Russian School” or the appropriation of the tradition of the “Viennese School” – from such important teachers as Vitaly Margulis, Anatol Ugorski and Paul Badura-Skoda.

Ana-Marija Markovina celebrated highly acclaimed concerts with many orchestras in Germany such as the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, the New Westphalian Philharmonic, the Schleswig-Holstein State Orchestra and the Darmstadt State Orchestra. In Europe, America and Asia she has performed as a soloist with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra Finland, the Philharmonie Stettin Poland, the Philharmonie Kaliningrad Russia, the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, the Radio Philharmonie Bucharest and the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra Tokyo.

Her Japanese debut took place at the International Piano Festival in Yokohama, after which she was invited to all major music centers in Japan. She was a guest at the Bach Weeks Ansbach, the Hamburg Bach Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Hohenloher Music Summer, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Music Festival Frankfurt a.d. Oder, the Brandenburg Summer Concerts, the Festival European Weeks Passau, the Semaine Sainte en Arles or the International Piano Stars Festival in Latvia.

Her extensive concert activities as a soloist regularly take her to the most important venues such as the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Beethovenhalle Bonn, Prinzregententheater and Herkulessaal Munich, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Meistersin-gerhalle Nürnberg, Glocke in Bremen and many others. Abroad she has given concerts at important venues such as the Musikverein Vienna, the Parco della Musica Rome, the Auditorium di Milano, St. John’s Smith Square London and in 30 other countries.

Ana Marija-Markovina is an extraordinary musician who brings to light the hidden with great passion and skill. Her “specialties” are complete works, such as the world premiere recordings of the complete piano works of Hugo Wolf, Luise Adolpha Le Beau and Humperdinck’s four-handed version of Wagner’s “Parsifal” (Gramola, with C. Garben).

Especially the examination of the musical world of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is of great importance for Ana-Marija Markovina: In February 2014, on the occasion of the composer’s 300th birthday, Hänssler Classic released a recording of his complete piano works on 26 CDs, generating a huge national and international media response. The recording was enthusiastically acclaimed worldwide as a discographic milestone and received the German Record Critics’ Award in 2014.

In 2017, the recording of Anton Urspruch’s entire solo piano work was published by Hänssler Classic and celebrated by the media and feuilletons alike. In 2018, the recording of Anton Bruckner’s entire solo piano work – including 13 world premiere recordings of pieces from Kitzler’s study book, which exist only as facsimiles – attracted particular attention.

Numerous radio and television recordings in Germany, Europe, North and South America, Russia and Asia, concert recordings and her discography of over 40 CDs complete her profile and document her unmistakable signature.

She has a close artistic collaboration with the composer Stefan Heucke, whose Variations with Haydn op. 85 she premiered in 2017 under the Berlin Reichstag Dome. The world premiere of Stefan Heucke’s 3rd Sonata at the Hohenloher Kultursommer followed in 2018 and her highly acclaimed performance of the Variations op. 85 on 03.10.2018 at the festive ceremony of the Day of German Unity in the Old Plenary Hall of the German Bundestag in Bonn at the invitation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

In 2019 she will play the world premiere of Stefan Heucke’s Diabelli Variations in Amsterdam, and in 2020 she will premiere his Piano Concerto with the Symphonieorchester Münster conducted by Golo Berg.

In 2019 her latest CD with the piano concertos of Edvard Grieg and Franz Berwald will also be released by Hänssler Classic. In May 2019 she will also premiere the piano concertowritten for her by Milan composer Federico Biscione with the Russian Chamber Philharmonic at the opening concert of the Hohenloher Musiksommer.

Ana-Marija Markovina devotes herself with great passion to pedagogical work. Her worldwide, international master classes attract a large number of participants. She has an extraordinary empathy for the personality, the level of education and the skills of the students and pupils, with particular emphasis on the aspect of a general educational foundation.

One of the main focuses of her work is to explore the psychology of composers and the soul of their works. Within the framework of this work she is in constant exchange with scientists in the field of creativity and brain research. In 2019 her first book “Glücks-Spiel” is published, which deals with the psychological, philosophical and neuropsychological basics of piano playing. Together with the music and cultural psychologist Prof. Dr. Helmut Reuter, she presents in the lecture series “Psychology and Music” the cultural-psychological significance of piano works in the spirit of their time, thus opening up a completely new perspective on musical interpretation and understanding of the works to the public.

Paul Badura-Skoda calls her „one of the most significant artists of her generation“.