Marina Mårtensson

Marina Mårtensson is a singer and guitarist who was born on 6 January 1987 in the south of Sweden to a Slovenian mother and a Swedish father, and she holds both Swedish and Slovenian citizenship. Her Slovenian mother is the reason she is on Muzika-Balkan under Slovenia. She grew up in the Swedish countryside, and she has lived in Slovenia since 2013. She sings in English and in Slovenian: most of her own recordings are in English, while her best-known Slovenian performances, "Blizu" and "Drugačna je le noč", are in Slovenian.

As a teenager in Sweden she was seen as a promising jazz singer, and she released two albums aimed at the Swedish and Japanese markets, Fences in 2009 and My Tribute to The King in 2010.

Slovenian audiences first got to know her on the talent show Slovenija ima talent, where she reached the semi-final. In 2018 she sang "Blizu" at EMA, the Slovenian selection for Eurovision, and made it to the final. Since September 2018 she has been a backing singer of Laibach.

Her biggest success came on 4 July 2026 at the 45th Melodije morja in sonca festival in the Avditorij Portorož. Singing last of the fourteen new songs, she and Drago Mislej Mef won the festival with the duet "Drugačna je le noč", for which Mef wrote the words; the winner is chosen by an expert jury, radio stations and the audience together, and the two had agreed in advance to make an album if they won.

The playlist comes from her own channel: the official recording of "Blizu", "It's a Shame" with Benjamin Shock, live recordings with the 3 Big Band in Izola and with her trio, and the covers she recorded, from "Ticket to Ride" and "Your Song" to "Hound Dog".