Gretta Ziller

Gretta Ziller writes songs that sit somewhere between confession and confrontation—honest, sharp, and grounded in lived experience.

Her work moves across Americana, alt-country, folk, and roots, but at its core is a commitment to storytelling that feels real, precise, and unfiltered.

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, laying the foundation for a lifelong relationship with melody, harmony, and song.

Over time, Ziller expanded into guitar, piano, banjo, and bagpipes, an instrument that would play a defining role in her early career. After completing a Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne, majoring in voice, she began working as an opera singer and bagpipe instructor before stepping away to build a career rooted in songwriting and independence. That classical training continues to underpin her work, giving her songs structure, control, and emotional clarity.

She first gained national attention in 2011 at the CMAA College of Country Music graduation concert, performing on the bagpipes. Momentum followed, with finalist placements in Telstra Road to Discovery (2012, 2013), winning the TSA/APRA New Songwriter of the Year (2013), and placing in Toyota Star Maker (2015).

Her debut EP Hell’s Half Acre (2014) introduced a voice grounded in narrative and genre fluidity, followed by her debut album Queen of Boomtown, which earned a Golden Guitar nomination, a CMC Music Award nomination, and a place on the Australian Music Prize long list. Its follow-up, Judas Tree, pushed further into darker themes and broader sonic territory, again earning Australian Music Prize recognition.

In 2023, she released her third studio album All These Walls, exploring themes of self-belief, emotional boundaries, and growth through a more spacious and refined sound. That same year, she was selected as the first recipient of the CMAA Academy of Music Scholarship, taking her to Nashville and leading to an official showcase at AmericanaFest.

In 2024, Ziller marked a decade of recorded music with The Miles, revisiting key songs from across her catalogue, and completed The Long and Writing Road—a self-directed project involving 52 co-writes in 52 weeks. This body of work now forms the foundation of her next album, with new music being released across 2025 and 2026.

Now based in Melbourne, Gretta Ziller continues to build a fully independent career centred on craft, collaboration, and longevity. Her songs resist easy categorisation, but remain grounded in clarity, warmth, and intent—written not to fit a mould, but to say something true.