Majda Sepe

Majda Sepe was a Slovenian singer of popular song, one of the leading voices of the golden age of the Slovenian popevka. She was born Majda Bernard on 2 July 1937 in Ljubljana and sang popevke, chansons and jazz for half a century.

Her family lived at Ljubljana Castle. She trained in ballet and expressive dance with Meta Vidmar, went to music school, and while at the gymnasium took singing lessons from the opera singer Franci Schiffrer. From 1953 she also worked as a fashion model, and her modelling career peaked in 1959 with knitwear shows in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Riga. At a fashion show she met the musician Mojmir Sepe; they married in 1956 and their daughter Polona was born a year later. At nineteen she passed an audition for the Ljubljana Jazz Ensemble and toured Paris with it for a month, and in 1960 she sang at the jazz festival at Bled.

After she gave up modelling she devoted herself to singing. She took part in Slovenska popevka every year from 1962 to 1977, except 1968, and won it with "Med iskrenimi ljudmi", then with "Uspavanka za mrtve vagabunde" in 1974, and in 1976 she took the audience's first prize with "Pismo za Mary Brown". Earlier entries such as "Pojdi spet na Bled" (1962), "Drevo" (1963) and "Pesem o pomladi in prijateljstvu" (1970) won third prizes.

She was just as present at the Yugoslav festivals: Opatija from 1965, Split with "O, obalo moja" (1973) and "Mornaru moj" (1977), Beogradsko proleće, Zagreb and Skopje. At Melodije morja in sonca "Ribič, ribič me je ujel", written by Mojmir Sepe with lyrics by Gregor Strniša, won the audience's third prize in 1978, and "Poj, kitara mojega srca" (1982) was named the most popular song in the festival's history up to then. With "Toplo, hladno morje" by Jure Robežnik she won first prize at a Mediterranean song festival in Alexandria.

Her records include Vse moje besede (Helidon, 1978) and singles such as "Sirota" / "Šuštarski most" (1970) and "Uspavanka za mrtve vagabunde" (1974). In 2004 she and Mojmir Sepe released the double CD S teboj.

Majda Sepe died in Ljubljana on 11 April 2006, aged 68.