Maja Keuc

Maja Keuc is a Slovenian singer and songwriter, born on 16 January 1992 in Maribor. She sings pop, soul, R&B and jazz, and since 2014 she has also recorded under the name Amaya. She represented Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011.

She took up music as a child, sang for seven years with the English Student Theatre and spent three years as the singer of the rock band Hrošči. She became known across Slovenia in 2010, when she finished second in the first season of the talent show Slovenija ima talent. That same year she joined the band Papir and recorded the album Po viharju with them.

In 2011 RTV Slovenija invited her to EMA, the national Eurovision selection, where she sang "Vanilija" by Matjaž Vlašič and beat the singer April in the superfinal. At the Eurovision Song Contest she sang the English version, "No One", finished third in the second semi-final and took 13th place in the final. Her debut album Indigo came out in December 2011 on Reflektor Music, with eleven songs whose lyrics she mostly wrote herself; singles from that time include "Zmorem", "Ta čas" and "Tako lepo mi je".

In 2012 she moved to Rotterdam to study pop singing at the Codarts academy, and in 2014 to Stockholm, where she went on to the jazz programme of the Royal College of Music and graduated in 2016. As Amaya she released the EP Fairytales in 2017, made in Sweden with producer Orphée Noah, and singles such as "Concrete", "Trust Issues" and "Sleep Alone / Sanjam sama".

She has sung on three film songs: "End of Night" with Reconceal for the film Kresnik: The Lore of Fire, "Naredi srce" for Gajin svet, and, as Maria Maya, "The Coming Race", which Laibach recorded for Iron Sky: The Coming Race in 2019. In Sweden she also began writing songs for other artists, including for the South Korean and Japanese markets.

In 2015 she sat on the EMA jury together with Darja Švajger and Tinkara Kovač. At Popevka 2022 her song "Rdeče" won the expert jury's award for best lyrics, and in May 2024 she released Sončnice, an album of ten songs all in Slovenian, with "Labirint", "Zmaji" and "Mavrične oči" among them.