About

Johanna von Karajan (01. September 1993 in Hamburg, Germany) formally known as Johanna Karajan is a German singer and songwriter.

Life & Career

Karajan was born as second child of an armenian-rooted family. Her mother was a Piano-teacher and her father, who was born and raised in Turkiye, a singer and multi-instrumentalist. He played the guitar, Bass-guitar and drums in different bands and musical projects. This is how Karajan and her brother have been raised with music early on. When they were little children they used to sing armenian children’s-songs to while their mother was accompanying them on the piano.

Already since school her job of wishes was clear: “Singer”, she kept on saying. Like this it was no surprise that this reputation was spread all over her school and had accompanied her for eight years until her graduation. Even in the so-called motto-week which took place as tradition on occasion of the graduation She chose the costume of a rockstar meaning to symbolize the job of a singer for the motto “dream-job”. But as well in elementary school she founded a music-group with her then two best friends inspired by the British girl-group Atomic Kitten and performed songs in the breaks or on class-events. Because of her famous last-name she was not at last called “The Singer” in her workspace.

During her school-time Karajan was singing in the school-choir with which she performed on school-events. When she was in 8th grade Karajan got a solo for the song “How I Got Over”. Also in private surroundings she took singing and piano lessons which she however interrupted due to her graduation. After graduating her Master of Arts in Media and communication management in 2022 Karajan wanted to use her newly gained freedom to fulfill her dreams as well as to work on them. So she decided first of all to take on vocal lessons again. This time with the musical singer and actress Ana Ramirez at the music school Schneider (Musikschule Schneider). This made it possible for her to perform the Estonian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, “Bridges” by ALIKA.

During this project she got to know the piano student Linda Mangold and her teacher Thomas Adam. Both of them had such a great musical synergy that they decided to found a musical duo. Karajan discovered the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 with the Armenien debut in the competition. Ever since she has been a great enthusiast of the Contests. It inspired her so much that she also dreamed of and took aim to one day represent Armenia herself at the Grand Prix. This also encouraged her to write an own song. Many other songs followed. Today Karajan says that musicians who write their own songs especially inspire and impress her and that she would prefer to go without songs written by others.

Karajan feels most comfortable in the genres jazz, house as well as Pop and enjoys emotionale Ballades leaning on French chanson in between. Songs which underline this are among others “Can’t Tame Her” by Zara Larsson, “Hit The Road Jack” by Ray Charles or “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word” by Blue feat. Elton John. More musical ideals of Johanna Karajan are Birgit Sarrap, Aly & AJ, Aiko, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, Lana Del Rey, Vanilla Ninja, Ava Max und Teele Viira. She is as well good friends with the globally known and popular Armenian band NEMRA.

Private Life & Trivia

Privately Karajan has been married since 2017 with an electric-engineer, who took her last-name during the marriage. Together they have two children.

Karajan is a self-employed, freelance journalist, writes her own blog and has a bachelor-degree in Political Science. She has already modeled for Liz Malraux. In 2024 Karajan has participated in the cooking-show “Die Küchenschlacht” aired by the ZDF. Her host and mentor was the star-cheffe Cornelia Poletto. In the qualification-round for the fifth ChampionsWeek she ended up as foruth.