Marija Grazio was born in Dubrovnik into a family of musicians, where she took her first steps into music. She was formed as an artist through many forms of expression, literary, performative and visual, but has always been perceived primarily as a musician. She was taught the art of interpretation by numerous distinguished pedagogues, such as Konstantin Bogino, Marjan Mika, Vladimir Krpan and Dušan Trbojević, under whom she graduated. She completed her formal education with postgraduate studies under the renowned pianist Dubravka Tomšič at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. An accomplished member of various chamber ensembles, as a member of the duo with violist Marko Genero she received the prestigious Darko Lukić Award awarded by the Croatian music critics. She has a wide repertoire ranging from Haydn, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Franck to Honegger, Poulenc, Shostakovich, and has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras and conductors such as Pavle Dešpalj, Anton Nanut, Alan Buribayev, Ivan Repušić, Nicholas Milton, Mladen Tarbuk, Ivo Dražinić, Frano Krasovac, Tomislav Fačini and others. In 2006 she received the Orlando Prize for Best Musical Performance at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival for her interpretation of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Croatian composer Frano Đurović wrote a piano concerto for her, which she premiered with the Cantus Ensemble and conductor Berislav Šipuš at the Osor Musical Evenings in 2010, and performed eleven years later at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, at the Rector’s Palace with Dubrovnik musicians and conductor Tomislav Fačini. She has composed for piano, wind instruments (bassoon, clarinet, flute and trumpet), cello, voice, choral and chamber music, and songs for children. She also composes for theatre. She wrote the score and lyrics for the musical The Magic Flute, which premiered at the Marin Držić Theatre in Dubrovnik in February 2022. She founded the Sorgo Music Workshop, which she has led with the pianist Aljoša Lečić since 2001, with the goal of promoting Dubrovnik’s musical heritage ranging from the pre-classical to modern period, with a special emphasis on contemporary music and its interpreters. Re-examining different approaches and forms of performance practice, the Sorgo Music Workshop has organized over ninety concerts and festivals and published several valuable collections of sheet music from Dubrovnik’s musical heritage and works by contemporary authors. Currently they are preparing a publication of a collection of art songs by Dubrovnik composers with a historical overview. After four years, in 2021 she was re-elected as a member of the Cultural Council for Music and Musical Theatre of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.
