ELLA MALHERBE is a Swiss-Irish composer, singer-songwriter and producer, creating both her own music and original scores for film. She has carved out a distinctive artistic path, writing equally for orchestra and for her own voice and guitars, with a deep sensitivity to sonic textures and a skill for creating immersive musical worlds.
Her debut solo single, LANDLOCKED (June 2026), was immediately playlisted by three Swiss national radio stations and featured on BBC Introducing during its release week—an impressive achievement for an independent release.
Although Landlocked marks her first release under her own name, Ella has spent the past 17 years performing across Switzerland and Europe, most notably as one half of the duo Marzella (2009–2025). Their music received airplay on Swiss national radio and the BBC, was featured on Spotify editorial playlists, amassing over 500,000 streams, and led them to perform at festivals including Montreux Jazz Festival, Estivale Openair, and Venoge Festival. Together, they also co-composed the score for the award-winning documentary Cascadeuses.
In 2024, Ella was selected for an artistic residency in Seoul and was invited by her university to develop an inter-university project at the Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She has also been invited for two consecutive years by Music & Cinema Marseille to take part in its composer programmes. In 2026, she was one of only two composers selected for SoPro, the professional development programme of the Solothurn Film Festival.
This autumn, Ella will return to the stage with the contemporary dance company TacTic (Leyla Haubois), release music originally written for film, and unveil songs she has kept close for years.
