RTÉ Choice Music Prize-winning musician performs in Leitrim

Nominated musician Maija Sofia will host her only Irish tour date at The Dock ahead of her new album release. 

Maija Sofia, born in Galway, is a songwriter and artist who works between the overlapping worlds of music, performance and text. 

This event is expected to be a rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative, experimental musicianship, spanning delicate folk, lustrous experimental pop and a deep devotion to mystery. Maija's concert is taking place on August 11 at 8pm. Admission € 16. 

Maija's childhood was spent in various places around the county's wildest, most rural, most remote parts. As a teenager, she began experimenting with words and sound recording in her bedroom, moved by curiosity and the possibilities of creating new sound spaces to dwell in. 

Later, these experiments began to take the shape of quietly unusual songs, detangling the weirdness, joy and bewilderment of existing. Her music alchemises both the intimate and the overwhelming into strikingly unique stories, taking influence from antiquity, films, books and curious historical oddities to write at a slant about her own lived experience.

Movement is key to Maija's process, and many songs have been written while on the road or while occupying temporary spaces. Living nomadically between various places - from the west coast of Ireland to the hot, dusty streets of Athens, Greece - and mainly writing at night, Maija's lyrics channel nocturnal moments of late-night revelation, like a story shared through whispers over dying candlelight.

In 2019, her critically acclaimed debut LP, Bath Time, arrived via Trapped Animal Records. Recorded in Dublin with close friend and collaborator Chris Barry, the album explored the shadowed histories of sidelined women throughout history and mythology and took on an unexpected life of its own, garnering international praise, a dedicated cult following and a nomination for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize. She followed it up in 2022 with a single 'O Theremin' about being haunted by the man who invented both the first mass-produced electronic instrument and the first audio surveillance device. Now performing and collaborating with a full band, her songs grow more expansive, evolving and experimenting constantly. 

She is a recipient of the Arts Council's Next Generation Award, has had her music performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra and has been commissioned to write new music by the National Concert Hall, Sirius Arts Centre, Solas Nua, Dublin Digital Radio and Cork Midsummer Festival. As well as songs, she writes poetry which has been published by The Stinging Fly, Banshee and elsewhere. Her second album will be released in 2023.

Summer at The Dock is a series of outdoor film screenings, live music, and spoken word performances from July 14 - August 19.