Biography
Marja Burchard is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performance artist. She works and lives in Munich.
She grew up in the musical cosmos of the group Embryo and received piano lessons from an early age from her father Christian Burchard as well as from the jazz pianist Mal Waldron, and traveled with her parents as part of Embryo tours to countries such as Japan, Egypt, and Morocco.
Since 2016, she has led the music collective Embryo, which her father founded in 1969 and in which she has been playing since she was 11 years old.
From 2005 to 2010, she studied ethnology, musicology, and Slavic philology at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.
From 2010 to 2015, Marja Burchard toured as a musician with the “Antagon Theater” from Frankfurt. She composed the music for the play “Faust III” and toured with them—especially with the piece “Time Out”—to Brazil, Russia, and Romania.
She has composed for various music collectives such as “Radio Citizen,” “Jisr,” “Express Brass Band,” “Karl Hektor and the Malcouns,” “Seféria,” for the Belgian saxophonist “Pierrick Pedron,” among others, in which she has also performed and continues to perform as a multi-instrumentalist.
In 2018, she composed and staged the music for “Kill the Audience” by Rabih Mroué at the Kammerspiele.
In 2018 and 2019, she composed the music for the puppet theater “Theater Ananas” in Munich for the plays “Teilen Teilen” and “Knusper Knäuschen,” as well as for “Schusch” at the “Teatrul Gong” in Sibiu, Romania.
Marja Burchard traveled for extended periods to countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Japan, China, Turkey, Egypt, Mali, Senegal, Guinea, among others, to collaborate with local musicians and artists.
Since 2013, she has performed as a solo musician with the dancer Anna Orkolainen from Finland. Together, they have presented self-created pieces such as “Porotanssi,” “Regentrude,” and “Spiderweb” at various international theaters and festivals, including with the clown Slava Polunin (known for his “Snowshow”).
Since 2016, Marja Burchard has been part of the scene for improvised music as well as the MMI Festival.
Since 2016, Marja Burchard has led the Community Orchestra together with Wolfi Schlick in the tradition of “Community Music” from England and works in phases at schools.
Since 2020, Burchard has been playing and composing for church organ.
In 2023, Marja Burchard was invited by the Goethe-Institut to Kolkata, where she led a workshop on ambient music for women together with the electronic artist “Polygonia.”
In 2024, she was invited together with the group Embryo to Izmir, Alexandria, and Cairo to give concerts and workshops.
Since 2018, Marja Burchard has been composing and producing film music.
Awards:
In 2023, Burchard was awarded the Music Sponsorship Prize of the City of Munich.
In 2024, she received the Special Jury Prize at the Hessian Film Award for her music for the film Shahid by Narges Kalhor.
In 2025, she received the award for Best Film Music 2024 from the German Film Critics Association for the film Shahid by Narges Kalhor.
Nominations:
In 2022, she was nominated for “Best Film Music” at the Dokfest Munich for the film “Sound of my Own” by Rebecca Zehr.
In 2026, she was nominated for “Best Film Music” at the Dokfest Munich for the film “When Pigs Fly” by Denise Riedmayr.