Marija Esih

Marija Esih began playing the flute at the age of 12. She received her primary and secondary music education, along with general grammar school, at the Pavao Markovac Music School in the class of teacher Dea Kekelj. She graduated with honors in flute in 2006 in the class of associate professor Vesna Košir at the Zagreb Academy of Music. She continued her studies in France, where she enrolled in artistic training at the Ecole de Musique Agréée in Metz, in the class of professor Gaspar Hoyos. She won the Premiere Grand Prix at the Supérieur level.
From the third grade of secondary music school, she participated in various international orchestras: YMISO (Young Musicians’ International Symphony Orchestra) (1st flute), Danube Philharmonic (2nd flute), Mediterranean Youth Orchestra (1st flute). She won second prizes at the National Competitions of Music and Dance Students in 2002 and 2004, and first prize in 2006. That year, she also won the first prize in the chamber ensemble discipline with the Flute Quartet of the Academy of Music.
She performed as a soloist in the cycles Youth for Youth at the MDVL (2005, 2006 and 2009), at the Split Music Evenings (flute duo), in the cycle Zagreb Artists for the Zagreb Audience with organist B. Doliner. She participated in the 43rd Darko Lukić Forum, and in the 5th International Ferdo Livadić Competition as part of the Samobor Music Autumn. She is a member of the Zagreb Flute Ensemble, with which she has held a series of successful concerts throughout Croatia and abroad (Spain, France, Greece, the Czech Republic, Australia, Singapore) since 2012. In October 2019, they released their first CD entitled Carrousel.
Due to her great interest in the Japanese language and culture, she completed a three-year study of Japanology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. As the best student in 2010, she received a scholarship from the Japan Foundation for Outstanding Students, which included a two-week visit to Japan.
From 2000 to 2006, she was a scholarship holder of the City of Zagreb. Since the summer of 2020, she has published a series of compositions for flute and piano, as well as a flute ensemble, which have been well received in domestic and foreign flute circles. At the international composition competition in Atlanta (USA), her composition Spring Sonatina won second prize (2021), and the composition Nucleus for flute ensemble won first prize (2022). Her latest composition for solo flute, Barock ‘n’ Roll, won the platinum award at the World Grand Prix competition (2024).
She is a member of the Croatian Society of Musicians and the Croatian Society of Flutists. She currently works as a flute teacher at the Dugo Selo Music School.