ABBA

Concertmaster and violinist from Tokyo, Japan, who began playing at two years of age, and made her concert debut at the age of five. She attended the Royal College of Music and the University of Southern California and studied under Rodney Friend and Alice Schoenfeld.

On 2^nd November 1985, she performed Felix Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in tandem with the Culver City Symphony Orchestra. Other artists and groups with whom she has worked include Valery Gergiev, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Mobius Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Razumovksy Ensemble, Kurt Sanderling, Andras Schiff, Evgeny Svetlanov, and the Vellinger Quartet.

In 1986, she won the National Solo Competition’s first and grand prize in violin.

She relocated to London, England, in 1987.

In 1994, she became the leader of the Philharmonia Orchestra and appeared on the CD, Galina Ustvolskaya: Octet; Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Quartet. She played on the soundtrack of the made-for-TV movies, La musique de l’amour: Un amour inacheve, in 1996. In 2000, she performed on a different kind of soundtrack: An Equal Music: Vikram Seth—Over 2½ hours of music featured in the bestselling novel. She recorded the Emmy-winning score of the BAFTA Award-winning Best Drama Serial, Shackleton, and pitched in on Charlotte Church’s Enchantment, in 2001.

In 2001, she was a guest artist of the Vellinger Quartet for a series of dates in Europe.

The Philharmonia Orchestra offered up an all-Tchaikovsky affair on 7^th November 2002 that included excerpts from The Nutcracker suite, “Orchestral Suite No. 3”, and “Piano Concerto No. 1”.

Maya became a member of the Mobius Ensemble and appeared on the CD, Federico Ricci: La Prigione di Edimburgo—Highlights, in 2004. In 2006, she played violin on the soundtrack of The Namesake and the CD, Paer: Sofonisba—Highlights. She performed on the CD, Richard Rodney Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1, in 2007. In 2008, she appeared on the soundtracks of Asterix at the Olympic Games, Flashbacks of a Fool, and Splice. Other soundtracks with which she is credited include Chaplin, The Red Violin, and Vanity Fair.

On 21^st January 2010, the Philharmonia Orchestra presented Helen Grime’s “Clarinet Concerto” and “To see the summer sky” as well as Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5” and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466” at Royal Festival Hall in London.

The Mobius Ensemble and the Orchestra and Choir of the Centre for Young Musicians Hackney participated in the Spitalfields Festival with a recital at Shoreditch Church on 12^th June 2010. The program featured “The Dino Rescue Team” by Ben Oliver, “The Roast Post Ghost Coast Song” by Christopher Ash, “Three Divertimenti” by Benjamin Britten, “Vier Stucke for String Quartet and Ensemble”, and music from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “English Folk Song Suite”, arranged by music director, Jeremy Birchall.

On 21^st October 2010, Maya served as Guest Concertmaster of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a concert at Usher Hall that comprised Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Piano Concerto No. 1”, Sir Edward Elgar’s “Symphony No. 1”, and Jean Sibelius’s “Scene with Cranes”, from Kuolema.

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