Tinkara Kovač was born in the Slovenian city of Koper in 1978. She studied classic flute at the academy of music in Triest (Italy). Her first album was released in 1997 for which she received the Zlati Petelin Award, the most important Slovenian music award. In the same year she participated in the project Terry mystica, a crossover of world music, jazz und rock. The project was awarded two more Zlati Petelin awards.
In 1999 Tinkara took part at the EMA festival to represent Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem. Her song Zakaj finished second. The same year her second album was released. In 2001 she moved to Dallas Records and released her third album. At that time Tinkara gave up to 50 concerts per year.
Until today Tinkara has played more than 800 gigs in Slovenia, Croatia,
Austria and Italy Together with numerous and diverse music
bands. For her, the most prominent international
collaborations on stage or in the studio were projects with Ian Anderson
(Jetrho Tull), Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Carlos Nuñez, Dan Lavery,
Massimo Bubola, Bungaro and Paul Millns.
In
January 2013 Tinkara released a
special project with lullabies and musical bed-time stories in dialects
of Slovenian and Croatian Istria, Friuli Venezia Gulia and the Slovenian
Coast and Karst Region called Zazibanke (Lullabies). In July 2013 she performed at the 33rd edition of The Melodies of the
Sea and the Sun Festival with the song Mars in Venera (Mars and Venus) which
she wrote in collaboration with Gaber Radojevič and Lea Sirk. She was
awarded the Best Performance and the Main Prize.
