Born in Kosovo, Mrika Sefa started playing the piano at the age of nine. She was aged seventeen when she decided to move to the exact opposite reality, Switzerland. She completed the BA and MA degree in piano at Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel, Hochschule der Künste Bern and Hochschule für Musik Luzern. Her teachers include Konstantin Lifschitz, Patricia Pagny, László Gyimesi and Tobias Schabenberger. She was a scholarship holder at B.O.G. - Basler Orchester-Gesellschaft and atDta Stiftung. Prior to this, she studied with Vlora Baruti and Misbah Kaçamaku at the Music Conservatory in Pristina (Kosovo).
She was the founder of Rockin' Hood (alternative rock & charity festival) in Pristina (Kosovo) and later, while living in Porto (Portugal), founded INSIMUL, a chamber music festival, held at Casa das Artes.
Mrika received impactful tuition from eminent artists, such as: Maria João Pires, Lilit Grygoryan, Miguel Borges Coelho, Ronald Brautigam, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Marta Zabaleta, Wolfgang Rihm, Anton Kernjak, Marc Coppey, Christophe Coin, Maria de Macedo, Paulo Gaio Lima, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Caspar Frantz, Pierre Sublet, Eduardo Torbianelli, Afonso Fesch, Ina Dimitrova, Christian Giger, among others.
In 2015, Mrika won the 1st prize at the YAMAHA Piano Competition in Bern (Switzerland), and in 2013 the 2nd prize at Concours Musical de France, in Paris (France).
An avid and chamber musician, among others, Mrika regularly collaborates with the cellist Hugo Paiva, with whom she founded Duo Litanei, in 2018. The duo holds a MA degree in chamber music from Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy", in Leipzig.
In recent years she has established herself not only as interpreter of contemporary music, but also as collaborator to a wide base of living composers, having premiered works by Agustín Castellón Molina, Rui C. Antunes, Corie Rose Soumah, Wieland Hoban, Eleni Ralli, Valerio Sannicandro, João Quinteiro, Hugo Vasco Reis, Michael Maria Ziffels, Zachary Seely, etc.
Mrika is a member of Concrète LAB Ensemble, Ensemble Contemporâneo da Póvoa de Varzim and works frequently with Ensemble Contemporary Insights, based in Leipzig.
Her most recent project is the duo Nada Contra, formed in 2023 alongside the percussionist Francisco Cipriano, in which she also plays MIDI keyboards.
Some of Mrika's most energizing collaborators is Martim Sousa Tavares - maestro, author and artistic director. She participated in several TV-programs curated by Sousa Tavares and, under his baton, performed as a soloist with Orquestra Sem Fronteiras.
Mrika lives in Leipzig, Germany.
She was the founder of Rockin' Hood (alternative rock & charity festival) in Pristina (Kosovo) and later, while living in Porto (Portugal), founded INSIMUL, a chamber music festival, held at Casa das Artes.
Mrika received impactful tuition from eminent artists, such as: Maria João Pires, Lilit Grygoryan, Miguel Borges Coelho, Ronald Brautigam, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Marta Zabaleta, Wolfgang Rihm, Anton Kernjak, Marc Coppey, Christophe Coin, Maria de Macedo, Paulo Gaio Lima, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Caspar Frantz, Pierre Sublet, Eduardo Torbianelli, Afonso Fesch, Ina Dimitrova, Christian Giger, among others.
In 2015, Mrika won the 1st prize at the YAMAHA Piano Competition in Bern (Switzerland), and in 2013 the 2nd prize at Concours Musical de France, in Paris (France).
An avid and chamber musician, among others, Mrika regularly collaborates with the cellist Hugo Paiva, with whom she founded Duo Litanei, in 2018. The duo holds a MA degree in chamber music from Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy", in Leipzig.
In recent years she has established herself not only as interpreter of contemporary music, but also as collaborator to a wide base of living composers, having premiered works by Agustín Castellón Molina, Rui C. Antunes, Corie Rose Soumah, Wieland Hoban, Eleni Ralli, Valerio Sannicandro, João Quinteiro, Hugo Vasco Reis, Michael Maria Ziffels, Zachary Seely, etc.
Mrika is a member of Concrète LAB Ensemble, Ensemble Contemporâneo da Póvoa de Varzim and works frequently with Ensemble Contemporary Insights, based in Leipzig.
Her most recent project is the duo Nada Contra, formed in 2023 alongside the percussionist Francisco Cipriano, in which she also plays MIDI keyboards.
Some of Mrika's most energizing collaborators is Martim Sousa Tavares - maestro, author and artistic director. She participated in several TV-programs curated by Sousa Tavares and, under his baton, performed as a soloist with Orquestra Sem Fronteiras.
Mrika lives in Leipzig, Germany.
