With cello, voice and accordion, Vienna-based duo Marie Spaemann and Christian Bakanic create an intimate and unmistakable sound world. Rooted in classical tradition, weaving jazz, tango, pop and improvisation into their sound, their music moves freely across genres while remaining deeply personal. Since the acclaimed debut Metamorphosis (2020), the duo has performed on renowned European stages, captivating audiences with virtuosity, intensity and emotional depth.
Their album Splits & Circles marks a natural artistic evolution, expanding the duo’s sound with piano-accompanied songs and a stronger focus on songwriting. Marie Spaemann’s warm, soulful voice comes to the fore, while space, rhythm and subtle complexity allow the music to breathe and transform. In her lyrics, Spaemann reflects on inner processes and social realities alike, addressing themes such as fragmentation and belonging, vulnerability and resilience, quiet melancholy and the conscious search for connection.

In her debut album Gap, the cellist and singer-song writer shifts unconventionally across borders between the classics, soul and jazz, moving from Gaspar Cassadó’s Prélude, Hebrew folk song and Arabian love lyrics, through Johann Sebastian Bach’s second cello suite to songs of her own. She tells her bewitching stories as a one-woman band, with nothing but her own cello, a loop station and the characteristic sound of her voice

“With her souly, warm timbre the message of musical liberation hits home: she sings in a style that is reminiscent of Norah Jones, but with a cello.” Nina Waßmundt, Darmstädter Echo

“From atmospheric colours to bassline grooves and percussive elements, Spaemann and Bakanic plumb the depths of their instruments’ acoustic possibilities while Bakanic’s breath-taking improvisations and Marie Spaemann’s voice and playing generate an urgency and intensity which is genuinely moving.” - Tino Schulter