Maija Sofia Mäkelä

Maija Sofia Mäkelä is a writer and musician from the west of Ireland. She has released two albums, Bath Time and True Love and her poetry and non-fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Thin Air and elsewhere.

You can find her at:
Substack
Bandcamp
Spotify
Dublin Digital Radio

Contact:
maijasofiamusic at gmail dot com

Full bio:

Working across music, text, sound and performance, Maija Sofia Mäkelä is an artist and writer from rural Galway, Ireland.

A highly acclaimed songwriter, she traverses idiosyncratic and lyrical styles of freak-folk and experimental pop. She has released two albums under the name Maija Sofia; Bath Time (Trapped Animal, 2019) which was nominated for the Choice Music Prize; and True Love (Tulle Collective, 2023) which was praised as “enormously talented” in The Guardian, and in The Quietus as “a knotty tangle of irresistable earworms... the work of someone with an enviable talent.” She has toured extensively as a musician, performing anywhere from DIY art spaces to haunted churches to national Opera houses and concert halls, on her own and opening for artists such as Sharon Van Etten, Julian Baker and Mega Bog.

She has written various texts for performance and installation and her poetry has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee and elsewhere. From 2020-2023 she hosted a monthly experimental radio show called Invocations on Dublin Digital Radio.

She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Award (2020) as well as music bursary awards from Dublin City arts office (2021) and the Arts Council (2022.) She has been commissioned to write new music by National Concert Hall, Sirius Arts Centre, Dublin Digital Radio, Solas Nua and Cork Midsummer Festival. Her work has been arranged and performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra and she has performed several times on national television and radio.