Tamara Štajner

Tamara Štajner (born 6 September 1987) is a Slovenian violist and writer. She writes in Slovenian and German.

Early life and education
Štajner grew up in Krško, a town on the Sava in southeastern Slovenia. She later attended the Konservatorij za glasbo in balet music high school in Ljubljana and moved to Vienna at the age of 18. She studied viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Career
She has performed as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles in premieres of new music, including with Quasars Ensemble (Bratislava), Ensemble reconsil (Vienna), ensemble xxi. jahrhundert (Vienna) and Ensemble Wiener Collage (Vienna). Štajner has also played in period sound orchestras, including the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, the Orchester Wiener Akademie, the Main Baroque Orchestra and the Darmstadt Baroque Soloists. She has taken part in numerous tours to Japan, China, India, Colombia and all over Europe, e.g. E.g. with RSO Vienna, Vienna Concert Society, Vienna Boys' Choir, and Vienna Academy Orchestra.

As a performer, Štajner has appeared at the Vienna MuseumsQuartier, Vienna Art Week, the Vienna Secession, the Kunstraum Niederösterreich, OstLicht, the Centre national de l'audiovisuel (Luxembourg) and Williams College in Massachusetts, among others. She has collaborated across art forms, for example with Elisabeth von Samsonow and Christian Reiner. She combines audiovisual, performative and scriptural art in digital and analogue spaces. She has led interdisciplinary workshops, including at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and has worked as a lecturer at the organization Superar (Vienna) and Al Kamandjâti in Ramallah.

Štajner works at the interfaces between music and literature. Her first volume of poetry, Schlupflöcher, was published in 2022 by the Heidelberg publisher Das Wunderhorn. Štajner's work also appears in magazines such as Lichtungen, Krachkultur, DAS GEDICHT and Ostragehege. She developed several performance programs that combine poetry and music. The novel Raupenfell (2023) is her narrative debut. She is a co-founder of PEN Berlin.

Awards and honours
At the invitation of Brigitte Schwens-Harrant, Štajner read her text Luft nach unten at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2024 and won the Kelag Prize.