She always said that if she were a singer, she would change her last name to Biancorosso, explains Smilla Maier. She smiles, so to be on the safe side, you ask again whether this is a serious project? Yes, it is. Biancorosso is her mother’s surname, explains the Unterhachingerin, who attends the twelfth grade of the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium. And somehow singing was always connected to Italy in her life. Her grandfather played a lot of music on his own radio show in Trieste, and there is also a real singer on the Italian side of the family. And it was in the children’s choir of the Italian Cultural Institute in Munich that the Unterhaching native’s talent began to unfold.
Smilla Maier is 17 years old. And yet something of an “old hand” when it comes to singing: to the meeting in a Munich café, the Unterhaching native brought two DIN A5 sheets of paper with her, on which she had compiled the stages of her career in neat handwriting. “Ever since I could speak, I’ve been making music,” says Maier. A twelve-member jury impressed Maier when she represented the community of Unterhaching in an international singing competition in the French partner community of Le Vésinet near Paris in the summer of 2022. In 2020 she was part of the party when Heinrich Klug, the longstanding solo cellist of the Munich Philharmonic, performed with an ensemble made up of musicians from the Munich Philharmonic and prizewinners of the young talent competition “Jugend musiziert!” Mozart’s “Magic Flute” staged.
“I feel free and comfortable when I’m on stage.”
“I feel free and comfortable when I’m on stage,” says Maier, whose role model is the Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, because of the lightness of the performance. After graduating from high school, Maier wants to study singing – of course. But the question is: where? The Munich Music Academy would of course be an option, and studying in Milan would also be great. Maier’s hair is long and straight, her features even, she wears gold-rimmed glasses and a black turtleneck sweater. And as she sits there and talks about her life with music over a cappuccino, she seems surprisingly reflected for her young age, this Unterhachinger with the warm voice. It’s a voice that tingles in the stomach and speaks to the heart when Maier sings. A voice that sometimes develops a volume that you wouldn’t trust the petite singer with.
Privately, Maier likes to listen to jazz, Dean Martin or Vaya Con Dios. And if Elvis Presley is running somewhere, she can hardly keep her feet still. Even in daycare, a teacher noticed how much Smilla Maier enjoys music. In the third grade she is accepted into the children’s choir of the Bavarian State Opera, at the same time she begins classical singing lessons. In those days, after afternoon classes, there was often still choir rehearsal, with homework to be done in between. The Unterhaching native has particularly fond memories of the concert tours, to Rome for example, but also to Prague, where they would have sung in the youth hostel. “That was super, super cool,” says Maier. For several years she has been taking lessons in jazz and pop singing at the music school in Unterhaching. She is also well versed in church music and can also play the piano.
And then of course there is the dance. To this day, her stage performances benefit from the ballet lessons she received over 13 years. For a while she was even unsure whether she should pursue dance or singing professionally. Paradoxically, the pandemic helped her make the decision: when Maier suddenly filled the masses of free time available in lockdown with singing, she not only noticed how quickly she was improving. The woman from Unterhaching also recognized: “Wow, something could really come of it.”
She doesn’t say it like a hopeful teenager who just wants to try her hand at an audition. No, Maier is a professional with a good sense of her own talent and grateful to her parents for the privilege of being able to express themselves artistically. She has long understood that good art requires a high level of commitment: real feeling. Many have sophisticated technology, the competition is fierce, but in the end it all comes down to that certain something.
“You can only reach the audience with emotions. And that’s the goal.”
“You can only reach the audience with emotions. And that’s the goal,” she says. The next milestone on Smilla Maier’s path is the Abitur, after which she wants to relax and travel, preferably to Tuscany. She would also like to attend master classes and prepare for the entrance exams at music colleges. This in turn leads to the question of where does she see herself in ten years? “I’m not saying that I can only be happy with singing. But I want to be happy with what I do then,” says Maier. She wouldn’t be the first artist to have an exciting career with this relaxed approach.
Until mid-February, we will present candidates for the Tassilo Culture Prize 2023 in irregular order. An audio sample of Smilla Maier’s singing talent is available on Youtube: