On 25th May 1936 Slovenian singer of amusing music Marjana Deržaj was born in Ljubljana. She died in Ljubljana, 18th January 2005. In her singing carrier she recorded 312 songs, most famous of them is Summer night, which she sang for the first time in year 1957 on Ljubljana radio. She recorded and published many vinyls and cassettes: Guitars from Mexico (si. Kitare iz Meksika), Life with the song (si. Življenje s pesmijo), Songs from the heart (si. Pesmi iz srca), Scarecrow (si. Ptičje strašilo), Come back some time in Ljubljana (si. Vrni se kdaj v Ljubljano). She was nominated for Dnevnik’s personality of the year (1987), in year 1995she received the Viktor for life’s work.
Her singing career started with appearances in Ljubljana clubs. At the age of ten she already sang in opera chorus at show Carmen. She was performing a lot on radio and TV. She also performed on the festival of Slovenian popular song and in national-amusing band Good acquaintances (si. Dobri znanci). Her first performance on festival was in year 1957 in Beograd. A year later, 1958, with the song Train drives me into distances (si. Vozi me vlak v daljave) she won the Opatija festival of amusing music. In 1960 first Jazz festival was organized on Bled, on which she performed. With the song Summer night (si. Poletna noč) she won in year 1964. The song was set by Mojmir Sepe, the lyrics were from Elza Budau. With the song Dance of the clouds (si. Ples oblakov) on the same festival she won in year 1966, in year 1975 she received the audience award for the song We are like that (si. Mi smo taki). She was singing it with Braco Koren.
She competed on Yugoslavian contest for the Eurovision song contest in the sixties. With the song Golden April (si. Zlati april) she shared the first place with Sabahudin Kurt, year 1964. But Yugoslavia was presented by Kurt, as he got higher rating from the jury.
Publishing house of cassette and vynils RTV Slovenia published a compact disc after her death named For all summer nights! (si. Za vse poletne noči!) On the CD were collected the most popular hits of Marjana Deržaj. At the publishing house Dream (si. Sanje) on 20th June 2006 her biography was published titled Marjana – Stars are falling into the night (si. Marjana – Zvezde padajo v noč). The biography was written by Katarina Lavš. At the same the the CD with the same title was published at the publishing house cassette and vinyls. On it were recorded, which before have not been published on the audio medium. These are mostly songs from the achieve of RTV Slovenia.
  See other historical figures! |