Donna Maya

making a change

Donna Maya understands her art as a contribution to the political dialogue and a demand for a diverse society without sexism, racism and discrimination, worldwide! She is engaged to create an environment that offers equal opportunities and supports female artists to increase their visibility. In her live performances, that are accompanied by atmospherically modulated images and video sequences, she deals with social-political and gender topics that makes the audience reflect on their own positions.

being a female musician is not enough

When Donna Maya released her first vinyl album in 1998 under the name of her former dj- and producer collective called „The Godmothers Part II“, the public attention was focused on the fact that two women produce electronic music while mainly ignored the musical aspects. Extremly disturbed by that Donna Maya realized that, no matter how well she would make music, it’s about exclusion from a structurally male-dominated business. This strongly sensitized her to change something as well as take matters into her own hand.

tacking the chance

Started as a dj as well as playing drums and synth, Donna Maya was also keen to learn about studio technology and became a trained sound engineer. After her diploma she grabbed her suitcase and moved to New York and found a job as an audio engineer assistant in one of the biggest studio of the city, located at Times Square. At Unique Recording she worked together with Run DMC, Coolio, Easy Mo Bee, Tricky, Leni Stern and Joe Lynn Turner. Often working 12 to 15 hours daily she hardly found time to go out or make music. Therefore two years later she went back to concentrate on her own productions.

discovering the theremin

Back in Berlin Donna Maya set up a studio, released on various labels internationally and lately founded the label Sound Sister Records. She started to play live but somehow she missed the possibility to express herself more directly and felt not satisfied by moving sliders and knobs. When working for a record store and searching for used vinyls to sell, she saw a picture of a theremin, the first electronic instrument, as well as the only one that is played without touching it. Donna Maya knew that this was exactly what she was looking for. Immediately she bought a theremin and one week later used it in a concert. During the following years she developed her own approach to play the instrument and creates a unique sound that differs much from what is expected. Give it a listen!

DONNA MAYAS MUSIC

Donna Maya live @ ARTE concert / UWS

Donna Maya was invited to perform at the „Heroines Of Sound“ festival 2020 that highlighted a selection of cutting edge sounds from hero*ines of in the electronic music landscape from Berlin’s international scene. Donna Mayas stunning audio-visuell performance is a result from her journey to Detroit. Taking Detroit as a perfect example for what capitalism does to a social environment when cultural values where given up, she explored various sites that wrote industrial history and captured their sounds. Donna Maya transformed them into dense, artificial sound sculptures combined with electronic beats and a slightly dystopian vibe: Pure urban experimental electronics with theremin!

NEW RELEASES 2020

Lost Spaces -> Detroit
Donna Maya

Taking Detroit as a perfect example for what capitalism does to a social environment when cultural values where given up, Donna Maya explored various sites of Detroit that wrote industrial history and captured their sounds. She transformed them into nine dense, artificial sound sculptures combined with electronic beats with a slightly dystopian vibe that got even more intensity by her theremin playing: Pure urban experimental electronics.

Vinyl album, limited edition of 200 copies, + digital release, Sound Sister Record, 2020, Distribution: wordandsound

Release date: September 11, 2020

Bandcamp

Alien Swamp
baze.djunkiii & Donna Maya

Tribe’n’Bass? Tech’n’Bass? Drum’n’Tech? Whatever you might call it, is a quite trip, a journey into the unknown and unexplored.

For their conjunctional studio effort that is „Alien Swamp“ we see Hamburg’s baze.djunkiii and Berlin-based Donna Maya draw influences from spiralling TribeTekno and the freeform approach of the teknival scene, pay homage to their love for advanced, experimental Drum’n’Bass and fuse these elements with a stripped down high tech vibe somewhat reminiscent of early Minimal Techno coming out of Motor City Detroit. Imagine all these bits falling together at breakneck speed and with a well psychedelic notion and you’ll be captivated by one of the most unique dancefloor cuts from a space-exploring future, the electroid soundtrack for illegal raves taking place under the two suns of life-bearing exoplanets in binary star systems far far away.

7″ vinyl, limited edition of 200 copies, FREEBREAKZ.FWD, 2020

Bandcamp

Repetition Catches Chaos
Mila Chiral

Donna Maya Remix
Further remixes by Lady Maru, Adolfina Fuck and [U.G.O.]
EP, Dead Groovy Music, 2020

Beatport

Intoxication
[U.G.O.], Zephixx

Donna Maya Remix
The Amazons Remixes by INCL REMIXES, TOXIC D.N.A, E LA LUNA, LINA RESPEN & BENN X, MISS ADK, LADY MARU, MILA CHIRAL, IMA VIKK, KATARINA OHALLORAN, DONTTOXIQUE, DEMAH. MAYA (DE), DEYSA, WARDITA, XANHANDA,[U.G.O.]
Album, Underground Roads Records, 2020

Beatport

Press

„The music part of the night was kicked-off by Donna Maya, a Berlin-based musician and the first Abelton certified trainer. She got the crowd moving with her live show …“
DJ Broadcast

Live concert history

Donna Maya was invited to play at

Heroines of Sound festival (unitedwestream/ ARTE concert, Berlin)
Sea Watch soli tour (Germany)
Sonar (Barcelona)
Transmediale (Berlin)
Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich)
Berlin Atonal (Berlin)
female:pressure Perspectives Festival (Berlin)
Sonoras III festival (Valencia)
Khidi (Tiflis)

SELECTED WORK

Soundtrack contribution for „kurz und schmerzlos“ by Fatih Akin
„Blickfang/Blickfänger“, poetry-dance-performance with Anja Weber and Anne Duden, drei D poesie Festival, Uferstudios, Berlin
Official jingle „AfD wegbassen“, Berlin
„Crossfade“ & „Philharmonic Phunk“, compositions for Kammerphilharmonie and dj, Hannover