There are a few musicians and artists who do not want to commit to any kind of categorizations, who vehemently defend themselves against having to meet expectations in their work, who defy conventions and take the time to look at the bigger picture in order to pick up the challenge of crossing traditional stylistic boundaries. A musician in Austria who meets all of these attributions is the Slovenian singer, flutist and composer Maja Osojnik. Born 1976 in Kranj, Slovenia, Maja Osojnik has been successfully pursuing her own individual path for years. A path, that has led her to become one of the most respected and most accomplished representatives of the local avant-garde scene.
Maja Osojnik is one of the country’s most versatile and eclectic musicians. She is an artist who is always looking for new challenges and bravely submerges into different forms of musical expression and new musical fields. Maja Osojnik is a prime example of a genuine free spirit who does not shy away from any risks and does not limit herself to any musical dogma.
In her music, the Vienna-based Slovenian experiments with different, at first sight not really compatible musical styles and varieties and tries to reconsile these differences. She is primarily concerned with entering uncharted territories and exploring yet unknown forms of sound. Sticking to old standards is not really her thing. Swinging back and forth somewhere between the poles of jazz, avant-garde, improvisation, electronic, pop and contemporary music, the artist extracts various elements from this broad musical pool and brings it to a consistent and coherent whole.
Raised in Slovenia, Maja Osojnik came to Vienna in the mid 90s, where she studied the recorder from 1995 to 2003 at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts. These studies were followed by a concert and master training for the recorder and a degree in jazz singing with Ines Reiger. As a founding member of the Low Frequency Orchestra, an ensemble for contemporary improvised and composed music, the artist appeared in the Austrian avant-garde music scene for the first time early 2000. From then on the artist passionately dedicated herself to various projects with different constellations.
Together with Eva Reiter, Theresa Dlouhy, Thomas List and Katharina Lugmayr as the Ensemble Mikado, the multi-faceted Maja Osojnik dives deep into the world of early music and simultaneously devotes herself to experimental and avant-garde soundscapes with the Mexican flutist Angélica Castelló in the duo frufru. In the formation Balkon, Maja Osojnik makes excursions into electronic noise rock spheres with Matija Schellander, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Mathias Koch, with the quartet subshrubs, consisting of herself, Katharina Klement, Billy Roisz and once more Angélica Castelló, she goes on outings in electro-acoustics. With Rdeča Raketa, she plays with sound experiments and in her own band, the Maja Osojnik Band, she commits herself to a hybrid of jazz, world music and avant-garde, together with Philip Jagschitz, Bernd Satzinger, Mathias Koch, Michael Bruckner and Clemens Wenger.
With such a pronounced openness towards different musical currents, with such a love of experimentation and curiosity, it is difficult to predict which direction Maja Osojnik will pursue in the future. One aspect is yet quite sure, Maja Osojnik will surprise us over and over again, regardless of any constellation.
Michael Ternai
translated from the German by Doris Miyung Brady
Photocredit Maja Osojnik 1: Rania Moslam
Photocredit Maja Osojnik 2: David Murobi