Mia Žnidarič

Mia Žnidarič, full name Mirjana Žnidarič Klink, is a Slovenian jazz singer, born on 9 December 1962. In the 1990s she became the most popular jazz singer in Slovenia, helped by her music in the Slovenian film hit Babica gre na jug. She is an alto and sings in both Slovenian and English.

She comes from a poor farming family in Fala, in the municipality of Ruše, and worked nine years in a factory in Ruše; her parents did not support her choice of music. Her models were Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson and Etta Jones, and later Joni Mitchell. In 1986 the trumpeter David Jarh, then studying jazz in Graz, introduced her to musicians there and in Ljubljana, and she has sung seriously since 1989. At 27 she met Nino de Gleria, moved from Maribor to Ljubljana and began singing in jazz clubs. She then met the director Vinci Vogue Anžlovar and lent her voice to the lead actress of Babica gre na jug, singing "All of You", written by the director and Milko Lazar.

Her best-known songs are "A si ti, al' nisi ti" (1993), "Mala terasa" with Matjaž Šemrov and Magnifico's band U'redu, and "Dan je drugačen" (1999). She was a guest on Jan Plestenjak's first cassette and has worked with the Celje dance orchestra Žabe, Danilo Kocjančič, Miladojka Youneed, Primož Grašič, the RTV Slovenija Big Band and the RTV Slovenija Symphony Orchestra. Her lyricists include Svetlana Makarovič, Elza Budau, Milan Dekleva and Feri Lainšček.

Her albums began with Kako lep je ta svet (1992) and the children's album Mia in škrat sanjavec (1993), with words by Lainšček and music by Nino de Gleria. Hold My Hand (1995), made with the Steve Klink Trio, won three Zlati petelin awards in 1996, for jazz performer, jazz album and album in a foreign language, and Pobarvanka (1998) was jazz album of the year in 1999. On Iskre (2000) she sang "Ljubezen je zakleti grad" with Oto Pestner. Later came Preblizu, predaleč (2004) with the RTV Slovenija Big Band under Milko Lazar, mixing jazz with country folk, Nevidni orkester (2008), Love You Madly (2010), Z dotikom (2018), recorded in Cologne, and Obarvana (2023).

Mia Žnidarič is married to the American pianist Steve Klink from Iowa, whose trio has long accompanied her, and she lived and worked in Cologne for five years. In 2010 she was one of Slovenia's ambassadors of the European Year for Combating Poverty, and she sang at the concerts for the 80th birthdays of Mojmir Sepe and Jure Robežnik.