Taja Astar is a Ukraine-born classical pianist and composer, currently residing in Sweden. She came to music-making through her love for opera and completed a Master’s in Composition in 2023. Despite being at an early stage of her career as a composer, she has seen her music commissioned and played across the globe, most notably in the Nordic countries, the UK, Canada, and the US. She has been a finalist and/or winner in several composition competitions, including, most recently, a prize at the Fourth HerVoice Choral Composition Competition (USA, 2024) and a Special Prize “Radio Classic FM” at the Third International Syn(es)thesis Composition Competition (Bulgaria, 2023). Having mastered both traditional and contemporary compositional techniques, she has developed her unique musical language in a modern tonal paradigm, that is both elaborate yet reasonably accessible for listeners of various backgrounds. She is always open for most absurd ideas and experiments, as long as they serve the composition’s purpose and add to its unique unity. In her works, she often turns to complex and painful social and personal issues, and likes to interlace her music with intertextual references that strive to build bridges between different arts, genres and epochs. CV and portfolio: https://www.muvac.com/en/profile/taja-astar