About

Gretta Ziller is an Australian singer songwriter, multi instrumentalist whose work spans Americana, alt country, folk, and roots music. Raised in the Upper Murray region of Victoria in a farming family, music was present from the very beginning. She could whistle before she could speak and began learning violin at the age of three. That early immersion shaped a lifelong relationship with melody, harmony, and storytelling.

Gretta later expanded her musical language to include guitar, piano, banjo, and bagpipes, an instrument that would play a defining role in her early career. She completed a Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne, majoring in voice, and initially worked as an opera singer and bagpipe instructor. This classical training continues to underpin her songwriting and performance style, giving her work strong structure, control, and emotional clarity.

She first gained attention in 2011 at the CMAA College of Country Music graduation concert, where she performed on the bagpipes, signalling early on that she would not follow a predictable path. In the years that followed, Gretta built momentum through key industry milestones, including finalist placements in Telstra Road to Discovery in 2012 and 2013, winning the 2013 TSA APRA New Songwriter of the Year award, receiving an honourable mention in the Unsigned Only Songwriting Competition, and placing top three in Toyota Star Maker in 2015.

Her debut EP Hell’s Half Acre was released in 2014 and laid the foundation for a career defined by strong narrative songwriting and genre fluidity. This was followed by her debut album Queen of Boomtown, which blended country, blues, rock, and folk influences and earned a Golden Guitar Award nomination for Alt Country Album of the Year, a CMC Music Award nomination, and a place on the Australian Music Prize long list. The lead single Slaughterhouse Blues also received international songwriting recognition.

Gretta’s second album Judas Tree marked a shift toward darker themes and broader sonic textures, exploring resilience, power, and personal reckoning. The album was again longlisted for the Australian Music Prize and cemented her reputation as an artist willing to take creative risks.

In 2023, Gretta released her third studio album All These Walls. The record explored themes of self belief, emotional boundaries, and growth, pairing introspective songwriting with a more refined and spacious production style. The release coincided with her selection as the first recipient of the Country Music Association of Australia Academy of Music Scholarship, which took her to Nashville and included an official showcase at AmericanaFest in 2023.

In 2024, she marked a decade of recorded releases with The Miles, an anniversary album revisiting key songs from across her catalogue. That same year, she completed The Long and Writing Road, a self directed project involving 52 co writes in 52 weeks. The project now forms the creative foundation of her next album cycle.

New music is being released across 2025 and 2026 leading into a full length album built entirely from those collaborations. Alongside her recording work, Gretta tours extensively, teaches, mentors emerging artists, and remains fully independent and self managed.

Now based in Melbourne, Gretta Ziller continues to build a career centred on craft, connection, and sustainability. Her songs sit outside easy categorisation, grounded in lived experience and delivered with clarity, warmth, and intent.