Mimika Orchestra

Biography

Mimika Orchestra is a progressive, avant-garde, conceptual jazz-world ensemble founded in London in 2010 by Croatian multi-instrumentalist and composer Mak Murtić alongside vocalist Maja Rivić. Both founders are Croatian, and the ensemble — which draws on a rotating cast of London-based jazz musicians alongside Croatian collaborators — eventually relocated its base to Zagreb. Murtić writes and directs the majority of the material, composing for large ensemble forces that incorporate ethnic instruments, live electronics, and modular synthesizers alongside conventional jazz instrumentation.

The ensemble's sound sits at a restless crossroads of free jazz, progressive rock, Balkan folk modalities, and orchestral contemporary music. Murtić's compositions are steeped in South Slavic and Croatian folk traditions — their scales, irregular meters, and ritual character — filtered through the Afro-futurist spectacle of Sun Ra and the structural ambitions of Stravinsky and Bartók. Every album is a fully realized concept: one project imagined a utopian Martian society in sci-fi satire ("A Place Glowing a Brilliant Red," 2015); another traced prehistoric human migrations out of Africa ("From Scratch to Structure Suite"); a third staged a pagan Slavic funeral ceremony ("Divinities of the Earth and the Waters," 2018); the fourth, "Altur Mur" (Menart/Rika Muzika, 2022), continued this thematic arc. Costumes, staging, and narrative bind the music into theatrical performance events rather than conventional concerts.

Recognition has come steadily across Europe: Mimika Orchestra has been featured on BBC Radio, Jazz FM, Soho Radio, and Worldwide FM, and performed at major European festivals including the EFG London Jazz Festival. In 2020, they were selected to represent Rijeka, Croatia's European Capital of Culture, and represented Croatia in the European Broadcasting Union's Art's Birthday programme, with their concert streamed live across national radio stations throughout Europe.

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Fun Facts

• Every Mimika Orchestra project is a fully staged conceptual event — costumes, narrative, and performance are integral, not supplementary, to the music.
• In 2020, the ensemble was chosen to represent Rijeka, Croatia's European Capital of Culture, and broadcast live across EU national radio stations for the European Broadcasting Union's Art's Birthday programme.
• The name 'Mimika' references mime and performance art — the ensemble treats music as inseparable from theatrical staging.
• The orchestra blends modular synthesizers and live electronics with ethnic Balkan instruments, creating a sound palette that spans prehistoric ritual and science fiction futurism within the same project.

Musical Connections

Mentors/Influences

• Sun Ra - Primary Afro-futurist jazz influence on Murtić's compositional approach, spectacle, and large-ensemble conceptualism
• Igor Stravinsky - Classical modernist influence on orchestral texture and rhythmic complexity in Murtić's scores
• Béla Bartók - Influence on the integration of Balkan folk scales and irregular meters into composed jazz-adjacent music
• Goran Bregović - Balkan music reference point for the ensemble's use of South Slavic folk traditions in contemporary contexts

Key Collaborators

• Maja Rivić - Co-founder and vocalist; central performer across all Mimika Orchestra projects since 2010
• Darko Rundek - Renowned Croatian new wave/rock artist who has collaborated with the ensemble
• Damir Imamović - Sevdah (Bosnian folk music) musician and collaborator with the orchestra
• Croatian Radio Television Jazz Orchestra - Institutional collaborator for large-scale orchestral projects

External Links

• Spotify