Barbara Lexa

Barbara Lexa – Music, Bavarian Dialect and the Art of Yodeling

Barbara Lexa was born in Upper Bavaria in 1967 and grew up in a family where music was an essential part of everyday life. From an early age, she appeared on stage alongside her mother, Reserl Mayer-Lexa, singing and yodeling – experiences that laid the foundation for an artistic journey deeply rooted in music and Bavarian culture.

She learned to play guitar and piano and, from the age of 14, spent six years performing in a string ensemble. This was followed by twelve years as a keyboardist and bassist in various bands, performing a broad repertoire ranging from Bavarian dialect songs and popular German music to classic oldies. These years gave her extensive stage experience across a wide variety of musical styles.

In 2001, Barbara Lexa presented her first solo Bavarian dialect cabaret show. For the following seven years, she toured with her popular “Oa-Frau-Programme” (“One-Woman Shows”), combining Bavarian wit, musical originality and charming humor. In 2009, this evolved into the duo “MundARTissimo”, with which she and Rupert Frank successfully toured throughout Bavaria until 2015.

At the same time, Barbara began sharing her passion and expertise in yodeling with others. In 2012, she started teaching her own yodeling courses, and after retiring from regular stage performances in 2015, she devoted herself fully to this work. During this creative period, she also developed her popular JODELMANTRAS as well as mantras in Bavarian dialect, combining traditional forms of expression with a highly personal and contemporary approach.

Beginning in 2020, global events and health challenges led to a longer creative break, which ultimately became a period of artistic reorientation. Barbara Lexa returned to recording with the albums “Lass uns endlich Licht machen” in 2022 and “Canta festiva” in 2025.

A particularly meaningful chapter in her musical and family history began in the summer of 2026. While going through old tapes, Barbara discovered remarkable recordings of her mother Reserl Mayer-Lexa performing yodel songs between 1963 and 1980. Initially, Barbara created a retrospective songbook featuring 30 pieces spanning 150 years of yodeling tradition. It soon became clear, however, that these nostalgic and virtuosic recordings deserved not only to be preserved on paper, but to be heard once again.

The result is the double album “Jodel-Retrospektive”, conceived as the musical companion to the songbook “Mei Muatterl hat mir ’s Jodeln glernt”. The album brings together 16 historic original recordings by Reserl Mayer-Lexa and 14 yodel songs newly recorded by Barbara Lexa.

In many ways, the project brings Barbara Lexa’s musical journey full circle. What she first learned and experienced alongside her mother as a child, she now carries forward as a musician, yodeler and custodian of a living tradition – creating a heartfelt bridge between past and present.