Sonja Schmitz, born as Sonja Tešić, on June 17th, 1986 in Tuzla, is a Bosnian-Slovenian singer, lyricist, composer and music producer living in Germany.
Very early in her life Sonja started showing a great interest and talent for music. Therefore already at the age of five her mother took her to classical elementary music school in Tuzla and she started playing piano. Her early music education was partially interrupted by ongoing war in Bosnia but it also brought her even closer to her music and piano. Right after the war she started attending numerous international and national piano competitions with great success.
After finishing music high school in 2004 Sonja enrolled Rochester Institute of Technology and in 2008 graduated with the title: „BSc. of Science in Service Management“ with major in human resources. At the same time Sonja performed as a contemporary jazz singer and started writing her own music.
In year 2010 Sonja published the first own songs in Bosnian language: “Poslije tebe”, “Na tuđem jastuku” and “Snaga” following with music video for the song “Poslije tebe”.
In year 2013 Sonja moved to Germany and formed a guitar-voice duo “True Colors” that interpreted famous pop and jazz ballads. However, Sonja continued to further develop also as a songwriter.
In year 2017 she created with her partner production company “Schmitzi Productions” and published under name Sonja James her first songs on English language – On the Right Side, Thank you Germany, Life Keeps Going and Destiny.
In year 2018 Sonja wrote and published a song and a video “The Workers Song – MediFuck” causing a lot of controversy in Germany. The song is a parody Sonja wrote as a criticism on corporate world, managers and the way they treat employers. The special accent was on mobbing and sexualizing of women in the work place.
Song “Broken” followed in year 2019 in cooperation with the Swedish production house Tempo Digital. In the same year Sonja set up her own music studio and released song “Fire”, the first song in her own production. “Fire” reached international audience with over a million hits, on YouTube alone.
During the Covid-19 pandemic last year, Sonja finished her first author album in lock down. Together with music producer STENIK, they created an entire album – without of meeting each other. The album has two parts – “Dive In Deep” and “Gilded Butterflies”. The first song from the album that has been released is “No More Corona”.
