Anna Maria Jopek records and tours all over the world with the most outstanding artists of our times: Video

14.12. – Happy Birthday !!! Anna Maria Jopek (AMJ) – Vocalist, songwriter, improviser, a passionate visionary. Born into an artistic family – Anna Maria’s parents performed in the Polish legendary folk group “Mazowsze”.

She was only three years old when she first recorded a song for the Polish Radio. At the age of seven, she began her musical education in a piano class, and at the age of twelve, she performed at the Warsaw Philharmonic. As a teenager she regularly sang at churches, moderating liturgical chants. Over the years, she acknowledged that she had discovered the missionary dimension of music through this practice.

Anna received a scholarship of The Fryderyk Chopin Society in Warsaw. She spend her eighteenth birthday with an orchestra performing W.A. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor on the stage of The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. A few months later she began her studies at the same university and graduated with a master’s degree in piano at professor Jan Ekier’s class.

Anna’s second major was philosophy at the University of Warsaw. At the same time, she privately explored the secrets of singing at Daria Iwińska’s class – the legendary professor, who had also taught Anna’s father (Stanisław Jopek, singer).

AMJ has been noticed by a wider audience as a singer during the Slavic Bazaar Festival in Belarus in 1995, where she received a personal award from Michel Legrand. However, in her native country, she gained popularity by representing Poland at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997. After this performance she signed a contract with Universal Music, for which, since 1997 she has recorded several albums. She is devoted to this label to this day.

Anna records and tours all over the world with the most outstanding artists of our times. In Poland she had the honor of singing with Marek Grechuta, Jeremi Przybora or Wojciech Młynarski. Abroad she shared the stage with Pat Metheny, Youssu’n Dour, Bobby McFerrin, Ivan Linz, Branford Marsalis, Nigel Kennedy, Richard Bona, Oscar Castro- Neves, Noa, Makoto Ozone and Gonzalo Rubalcaba among others. In 2017 Anna also spontaneously sung a duet with Sting at a New Year’s TV program.

AMJ has performed at the world’s most renowned concert halls such as: Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Royal Festival Hall, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Blue Note Tokyo, The Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv or Hamer Hall in Melbourne. She recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio, Abbey Road in London and Power Station in New York.

In Poland AMJ has won every prominent Polish music award possible, including the Knight’s Cross Order of Polonia Restituta conferred by President Bronisław Komorowski for promoting Polish art worldwide.

For the past few years Anna has been experimenting with various stage forms. She has collaborated with the international theatre company – Song of the Goat Theatre. To take part in the group’s working process, she lived in their commune and performed with them for a month each day at the Fringe Festival in Scotland. Anna has also performed in “Czas Kobiety” (A Woman’s Time), the production of Teatr Stary in Lublin, directed by a legend of Polish theatre – professor Leszek Mądzik. The music was written by Anna Maria Jopek together with Robert Kubiszyn.

The range of AMJ’s artistic activities is quite broad. Anna has always placed experiencing herself and the world through music over sustaining her stage image. For over ten years see has been the artistic curator of the BMW Jazz Club series where she brought to life lots of projects and collaborations of contrasting musical personalities. She invited, among others, Branford Marsalis, Oscar Catro Neves, Richard Bona, Tito Paris, Makoto Ozone and Tomasz Stańko to take part in the series.

Anna lives between Warsaw and Lisbon, devoted to her children and cats. Once her music awoke a woman from a clinical coma, which AMJ considers her most important artistic achievement. “Finally my voice was trully useful” she said. She uses every occasion to run in half-marathons.