EPK
ABOUT
Maya Petrovna is operatic crossover alto, film composer, multi-instrumentalist, and hybrid performance–costume artist. Inspired by expressionism, her immersive solo show journeys through vividly surreal visual worlds, a live score to visceral revelations of humanity’s alchemy, led by Maya, who composes the score, designs costumes and visual world, and embodies each character.
Her solo shows, Futura Monomania and Love Songs from the Violent Paradise, have toured and headlined across Europe, appearing at Rome and Sarajevo International Film Festivals, London Fashion Week, Prague SWAN, Venice AWAI, and festivals in Berlin and Croatia. Her show The Womb of Universe and The Boob Monster was staged at Sydney Opera House for Club Kooky and official opening of VIVID 2019. Her act, Moth, directed by Bryn Harris Wathen, closed multiple residencies at London’s Box Soho.
Maya has composed orchestral scores for Baz Luhrmann’s Set to Screen series on film Australia, Tourism Australia Global Campaign, a spot featuring Annie Leibovitz, and Suzie Lovitt’s film about Jude Law’s son, directed by Ben Charles Edwards, produced by Sadie Frost.
Raised during the Sarajevo siege, Maya taught herself guitar and music reading in underground shelters before studying classical guitar and opera post-war. Since late 2024, Maya has made Melbourne, Australia, her new base.
NEW SOLO SHOW
Australian Premiere Planned
Maya’s upcoming solo show is a large scale, cross-disciplinary production featuring her new original score that blends contemporary opera, horns, textured sound design, and ancient Eastern European vocal traditions interlaced with the instrumental spirit of the Far East. Meticulously composed in tandem with a cohesive visual world, the work will feature surreal costumes, designed and hand-built by Maya to serve the narrative, alongside symbolic scenography that shapes the performance’s emotional architecture. It investigates the evolving tension between unity and individuality, a theme charged by today’s fragmented global energy.
Currently in development for its Australian premiere and available exclusively to producers.
LIVE
CONCERT
Maya Petrovna’s live concerts are highly immersive, music-led presentations of her wide-ranging original compositional repertoire, inviting audiences into emotionally charged and visually rich sound worlds, part visceral cinematic rite, part sculpted song cycle, like a living score to an unseen film. Maya's vocal style is influenced by her upbringing in Sarajevo, her surname’s Ukrainian heritage, childhood steeped in Portuguese fado and Peruvian Yma Sumac, and adult life in Western countries, where film composing refined her fusion of tradition and experimentation. A multi-instrumentalist, Maya writes her orchestral arrangements and performs on guitar, bass, piano, and synths, joined by remarkable musical collaborators in her upcoming concerts.
Maya’s concerts are distinct from her full-scale, cross-disciplinary performance art productions, offering a more agile, music-centred format.
PAST
WORKS
OVERTURE is a poetic short film blending original music, vocals, and surreal costumes, all methodically composed, designed, and performed by Maya Petrovna. Filmed across Europe and Australia, it follows Maya’s transformation through a series of symbolic costumes shaped by the narrative arc of her music.
THE WOMB OF UNIVERSE
AND THE BOOB MONSTER
THE WOMB OF UNIVERSE AND THE BOOB MONSTER was a 20-minute contemporary opera solo show, composed, designed and performed by Maya Petrovna for VIVID’s official opening at the Sydney Opera House. Maya's show was part of a curated showcase by Sydney’s iconic Club Kooky, a bold, queer celebration of experimental voices in music and performance art.
FUTURA
MONOMANIA
FUTURA MONOMANIA stands as one of Maya’s earlier touring solo shows. A 75-minute work featured score composed by Maya that fused orchestral arrangements with contemporary opera, industrial drones, and electronic music. She also designed six sculptural costumes and scenographic projections, portraying beings adrift in fragmented identities within a futuristic utopia.
LOVE SONGS FROM
THE VIOLENT PARADISE
LOVE SONGS FROM THE VIOLENT PARADISE is one of Maya’s earlier touring solo shows. Running 90 minutes, it featured a tapestry of contemporary operatic songs composed by Maya, with seven scenographic projections and costumes she designed, portraying imaginative worlds of a child recovering from war trauma.
“Maya Petrovna delivered an extraordinary score and performance art… With her original music and six self-designed costumes, she created a futuristic utopia where alienated beings try to relate to one another. The performance, deeply visual and immersive, blends influences from Jodorowsky to films like Baraka, Samsara, and Koyaanisqatsi.”
David Belas
Director of Sedam Dana Stvaranja Festival
Regional Express Portal Istria
" Composer and multidisciplinary artist Maya Petrovna… she transformed the old Pazin Castle into symbolism, contemporary associations… The costumes taken off on stage, I have experienced as layers that we should discard to return to our authentic self.“
From an Interview with Nevenka Miklenić, Dance Portal Croatia, PLESNA SCENA.hr
“Maya Petrovna, a performance unlike any other opera. The handcrafted costumes, all created by the artist herself, speak volumes about the depth and vision behind the show. Petrovna transforms into surreal beings with elongated limbs and intricately detailed gowns, set against her original composition and surrealist video projections. Futura Monomania is a captivating, one-of-a-kind spectacle ..."
Curators of Poreč Street Art Festival
on Maya's show at Lapidarium (Croatia)
PUBLICITY PHOTOS
LIVE PERFORMANCE STILLS
MUSIC
PAST
WORK
SHORT FILM
OVERTURE
PRESS
STUDIO WORKS
SOUNDCLOUD
