In the work of Swiss singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Andrina Bollinger, avant-pop, jazz, poetry, and performance art collapse into a multisensory maze. Initially trained in jazz but unbound by genre, her music is rich with nuance - a sonic memoir woven from fragmented narratives, field recordings, and emotionally textured topographies.

Andrina’s musical journey began at the age of two, when she learned to sing her way through Romansh songbooks with ease. To this day, she draws inspiration from her Engadin roots - both visually and lyrically. When asked about her music, she compares it to Not Vital’s Castle of Tarasp: a living sculpture, a portal into space layered with meaning and earthy humour. Musically, her work shares a kinship with artists like Julia Holter, Samora Pinderhughes, Björk, and L’Rain - where genre boundaries dissolve, and sound, the art of storytelling, performance, and visual art merge into a singular experience. In her live shows, she pulls the audience into something of a lucid dream, maneuvering between instruments and pushing her band into moments of charged instability. It’s an orchestrated, improvisatory free fall.

To date, Andrina has released a full-length album titled Secret Seed (2022), which explores the idea of mapping inner landscapes through poetic abstraction, followed by the EP Pleasure & Pain (2023), a project centered on emotional duality. She has been invited to perform at some of Europe’s most prestigious festivals, including the Montreux Jazz Festival, Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Café de la Danse in Paris, M4Music Festival in Zurich, Cully Jazz Festival, and Winterthurer Musikfestwochen.

Beyond her solo work, Andrina is active in several cross-disciplinary pursuits and is often invited to work as a musical director and sound designer for theatre and film. In 2023, Andrina worked as musical directior for the piece "das Leben des Galileo Galilei" at Schauspielhaus Zurich as well as was responsible for the live music on stage. In 2021, Andrina wrote & produced the soundtrack for the Swiss documentary "Harald Naegeli - der Sprayer von Zürich" and recorded the German off-voice through the movie.

Currently preparing for the release of her second full-length album, Island of Way Back, Bollinger continues to delve even deeper into her interdisciplinary approach, further dissolving the line between live music, visual and performance art.

Press-Reviews

«Mit ausserordentlicher Schärfe kreiert die Sängerin, Komponistin und Multi-Instrumentalistin Andrina Bollinger ihre persönliche Form der musikalischen Interpunktion. Ob mit ihrem Soloprojekt oder in diversen Kollaborationen – mittles der virtuosen Präzision, mit der sie ihre Stimme einsetzt, ihrer Freude an rhythmischen Experimenten sowie ihrer erfrischenden Präsenz, bereichert sie uns mit einer aussergewöhnlichen und kontrastreichen Performance.» 
Musiker*innenrat Moods Zürich

"BADASS!!!"
Bobby Sparks at the ZKB Jazzpreis 2020 (St. Vincent, Snarky Puppy, Marcus Miller and more...)

«Eine Stimme mit einer solchen Dringlichkeit und Überzeugungskraft wie die von Bollinger findet man in der Schweiz, in der Zurückhaltung eine Tugend ist, nur selten. Erfrischend unverfroren, unverschämt, frech, verspielt und unhelvetisch extrovertiert. Ausserirdisch? Wie ein Wesen von einem anderen Stern, oder Planeten.» 
Stefan Künzli, Aargauer Zeitung

Education

Andrina holds a Master Degree of Arts in Music Pedagogy & Performance (Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), 2015) where she studied with  Marianne Racine, Andreas Schaerer, Lisette Spinnler, Chris Wiesendanger & Joy Frempong.

She took Workshops and Masterclasses with Jay Clayton (USA), Bugge Wesseltoft (NOR), Christian Zehnder (CH), Rose Ann RAD Kirsch (USA) & Becca Stevens (USA) just to name a few.

Since 2018, she’s taking technical singing lessons with the Argentinian Singer Eugenia Visconti in Berlin

Teaching

From 2019-2022, Andrina taught bachelor and master-students at the WIAM Winterthurer Institut für aktuelle Musik in singing lessons and sightreading classes and is currently teaching at MKZ Musikschule Konservatorium Zurich. She's regularly invited to give Masterclasses at Art Schools in Switzerland.

Prices/Grants

2024/2025 Part of the Programme "Fast Forward" by Pro Helvetia

2024-2026 3 year support of the Canton of Zurich

2022 Carte Blanche Moods Zurich

2021 Freiburger Leiter Förderpreis of the IKF Freiburg for Andrina Bollinger solo

2020 FINALE ZKB Jazzpreis Andrina Bollinger solo

2020 Förderpreis of the canton of Zurich for her project Eclecta

2020 Carte Blanche Bee-Flat Bern

2019 Carte Blanche "Live in Vevey"

2018 "Get Going" prize of the Fondation SUISA for her Project Eclecta

2018 "Atelier-Stipendium Berlin" from the City of Zurich, that allowed her to focus on her creative work from August 2018 until February 2019 and to train her voice with the Argentinean singer Eugenia Visconti.

2013 Scholarship from the Hirschmann-Stiftung for outstanding performance in her Bachelor-Studies

Selected Performance

Collaborations

Andrina was active in the Performance-Pop-Duo Eclecta from 2010-2020. Eclecta released their Debut-Album „A symmetry“ in May 2016, the second album "Open Other Doors" followed in October 2020. Both albums met with great approval in the national and international Jazz/Pop Scene and has led to cooperation with the Berlin based Booking Agency Handshake-Booking. Eclecta played shows in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Russia/Siberia.

With her Art Pop Duo JPTR, she released a song plus videoclip on every fullmoon in 2016. Their debut-album was released in April 2017, followed by two EPs in 2018 and 2021. JPTR played at renowned festivals like Schaffhauser Jazzfestival, M4Music Zurich and Pod Ring Biel and got featured in international blogs like XLR8R (US, FAMEmagazine (UK), Brooklyn Radio (US), Kaltblut (DE), Intro Mag (DE) and many more.
JPTR’s Videoclip for their song "Master Babe“ was nominated for „Best Swiss Video-Clip 2016“ and was screened at the „Solothurner-Filmtage". 

In Mai 2018, June 2019 & May 2020 Andrina collaborated with LAB junges Theater Zürich on three theatre plays at Theater Neumarkt, Kulturmarkt and Zirkusquartier in Zurich. In "Träumt ein Wal vom Menschsein“, Andrina got asked to write the music & create the sound design for it as well as be part of the performance.