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.
