Manja Ristić, born in Belgrade in 1979, is a violinist, sound artist, published poet, curator, and researcher. She graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Music (2001), then awarded at the Royal College of Music, London, with PGDip Solo/Ensemble Recitalist (2004). As a classical solo and chamber musician, as well as a composer and an improv musician She has performed all across Europe and in the US, involving collaborations with established conductors, performers, multimedia artists, poets, and theatre/film directors.
Ristić’s sound-related research besides contemporary performance in the field of instrumental electro–acoustics, is focused on interdisciplinary approaches to sound and field recording as well as experimental radio arts.
Ristić has created commissions for ORF musikprotokoll, Radiophrenia, Radio Art Zone, Kunstradio – Radiokunst, Radio Cona, Semi-Silent, Radia.FM, Framework Radio, REVEIL Soundcamp, all national broadcasting agencies across SE Europe, and many independent media platforms. She co-curated sonoAdriatic Tales at Ars Electronica 2020, and in the last 20 years curated and developed a distinctive number of cultural events, international projects, cultural conferences, and educational platforms in the fields of inter-media, experimental sound-related arts, scene, and multimedia arts mostly as a founder and manager of the Association of Multimedia Artists "Auropolis", but also as a sound-related arts curator of Gallery 12 HUB, programme editor of the Cultural Centre "Parobrod", co-curator of Belgrade Summer Festival BELEF, project manager of NOFM Radio collective.
The winner of several distinctive awards for solo and chamber classical music, laureate of the Academy Charles Cros Sélection Musiques Expérimentales 2024, holds an honorable mention from the Phonurgia Nova Awards, and a Golden Award for the extended media from the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia. She is a founding member of CENSE – Central European Network for Sonic Ecologies.
In the last decade, Ristić has published sound art independently as well as for labels and publishing bodies: LINE, Kamizdat, DASA tapes, Objects & Sounds, Unfathomless, mappa, Verdure Engraved, Troublesome House, Cona Zavod, Naviar Records, Flag Day Recordings, Framework Seasonal, Inexhaustible Editions, Elan Vital Recordings, Radio Art Zone, SIRR-ECORDS, Sonospace, Cities & Memories, Auropolis, UIII / AIIR, 20 Seconds Art Magazine, AMPLIFY 2020, sonic matter, and more.
Manja signs several independent theater and movie productions as an author, composer, and performer (The Deserters – by Damir Markovina, Munje – by R. Andrić, Between Dream and Dream – by M. Stojnić, Life of Lenka Reinerova Mnemosyne the Theater of Memories – by M. Ristić / S. Leboš, Penumbra – by G. Hudson, Tale of the Forbidden Flower – by B. Lyregaard, Red Coats – by D. J. Duncan, Some Alaska – by H. Pinter, Judith – by H. Barker, Nose – by N. Gogol, Midsummer Night Dream – by W. Shakespeare, Mansion Beckett – by S. Beckett, Oxygen – by I. Viripaev).