Maya Purdue
Tokyo-born pianist Maya Purdue has captivated audiences across Europe and Asia, establishing herself as an exciting talent among the new and young generation of up-and-coming female pianists. After Maya had performed in many of the most famous concert halls in her native Japan, such as the Sony Hall, Tiara Koto Hall, Tokyo Bunka Kaiman, Ishiabashi Memorial Hall and Suginami Koukaido Hall, she decided to study music in Austria, doing so at the renowned Mozarteum University under Professor Cordelia Höfer-Teusch. In Austria, Maya played concerts at the Mozarthaus Vienna, the Vienna Hall and in the “Wiener Musikverein”, which is one of the most important concert halls in Europe and the home of the legendary Vienna Philharmonic. In 2022, Maya won the internal piano competition at the Mozarteum and thus qualified for the renowned Bechstein Competition, which only admits one participant from each music school in Austria. After that, Maya won the Carl Filtsch Prize at the international Carl Filtsch Competition in Sibiu and then took part in the Schimmel Piano Competition in Braunschweig as one of the last 20 pianists. In September 2022, Maya was invited to the Wilhelm Kempff Academy in Positano to take part in a two-week master class on the Neapolitan piano school. Also, in December of the same year, Maya was invited to the local piano festival of the Greek community of Heraklion to play some concerts there.
From a young age, Maya took part in various national and international competitions, where, in addition to various other awards, she won second prize in the Higashi-Kantou Piano Competition (Superior Category) and first prize in the “Tiaa’s Ring Star Concert” at a gala. Maya began her musical education in her early childhood. She was initially trained in solfeggio (rhythm) by Yuri Sakurada (School of Emile Jacques-Dalcroze) and learned to play the piano at the age of three under the tutelage of her mother. She later continued her lessons with Masahito Shimizu and from 2016 she studied for her Bachelor of Music Performance at the Ueno Gakeun University of Music in Tokyo, where she studied under many world-renowned professors such as Yukio Yokoyama, Katsumi Ueda, Michiko Tanaka and Sahiyo Yonekawa who all honed her piano playing to perfection. After her bachelor’s degree, Maya went to the University of Performing Arts Graz in October 2018 and studied under Professor Peter Josua. Maya regularly plays concerts in Salzburg, Graz, Munich, Vienna, Valencia, Vigo, Creta, Naples and other cities in Europe. In 2020 she was selected to accompany an opera project at the Wiener Musikverein and subsequently performed many more times in Vienna. Since March 2021, Maya has played numerous concerts for the organization “Live Music Now Salzburg”, which, among other things, has contributed significantly to her increasing awareness in Salzburg. In the summer of 2021, Maya toured Japan and performed at charity events in Shiga, Nagoya and Osaka Prefectures to perform classical music to an audience that normally has no opportunity to experience it live in this form. A woman of many talents, Maya hosts a weekly radio show where she talks about her experiences as a pianist and classical music. In January 2021 she started her own radio show ‘Maya Perdue’s Music Diary from Salzburg’.
She takes great strides beyond the limits of a pianist.
