For 2011, the recipient of the Sama Smerkolja award is opera singer Mirjam Kalin, a member of the soloist ensemble of SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana. 

After finishing high school, she devoted herself to studying solo singing with the famous Slovenian prima donna - Zlata Ognjanović. In 1994, after a successful audition, she got her first role in SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, the role of the Governess in PI Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades. As early as 1996, she became a permanent member of the soloist ensemble of the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, where she has recreated a very diverse selection of solo roles, more than 35 in total. In the same year, as a young promising singer, she received a Wagner scholarship, and in 1998, the Golden Bird award for re-creation Fir trees in Kozin's opera Equinox. She also remained loyal to the concert stage, where she sang seventy vocal-instrumental works. In 2005, she received the Prešeren Fund award. 

During her artistic career, she performed in Europe with renowned conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Fuat Mansurov, George Pahlivanian, Hartmut Haenchen, Jacek Kaspszyk, Janos Kovacs, Leopold Hager, Theodor Guschlbauer, Anton Nanut, Uroš Lajovic, Marko Letonja, Marko Munih. ..