Maya Bennardo

Maya Bennardo (she/her) is an active performer and composer living in Stockholm, Sweden. Maya is interested in opening the dialogue and blurring the boundaries between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She is a member of the internationally acclaimed Mivos Quartet and also performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist Karl Larson in their Bennardo-Larson Duo.

Maya recently released her first solo record, ‘four strings’ with music by Eva-Maria Houben and Kristofer Svensson which was released on the kuyin label, September 2022 (named as one of The Best of Contemporary Classical 2022 on Bandcamp and one of Steve Smith’s 22 for ‘22). The album is a continuation of Bennardo’s work exploring sonic fragility and temporal stasis on the violin.

Maya is a sought-after chamber musician and soloist, and recent highlights include recording residencies at Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY and at the Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden and performances at Darmstadt International Music Institute (DE), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Wien Modern (AT), Sound of Stockholm (SE), at the Library of Congress on the “Betts” Stradivarius violin (Washington D.C.), Walt Disney Hall on Noon to Midnight (Los Angeles, CA), Lucerne Festival Academy with Saul Williams (Lucerne, CH), North Sea Jazz Festival with Ambrose Akinmusire (Rotterdam, NE), June in Buffalo (Buffalo, NY), and Lincoln Center Festival (NYC).

As a guest artist and educator, Maya has given performances and worked with students at universities around the world, including Kungliga Musikhögskolan (KMH), Berklee College of Music, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Tulane University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Hong Kong University, Brigham Young University, Boston Conservatory, University of California, Santa Cruz; University of California, San Diego; and University of Texas, Austin.

Maya's compositions are characterized by slow, unfolding timbral movements--exploring the co-existence of pitch and noise. Her compositions have grown naturally out of her improvisational practice on the violin, and the two continue to inform each other. Recently, Maya has composed new works for NoExit + andPlay, Lamnth, Alkemie + Amanda Gookin, Bennardo-Larson Duo, and a new long-form solo work for violin, and this season she is writing a new work for solo cello for Thea Mesirow, solo bandoneón for James Parker, and a piano, bass, percussion trio for NYC-based Bearthoven.

She graduated from NYU with a Master of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music studying with Gregory Fulkerson at both institutions. Apart from performing, Maya enjoys a rich teaching life in her private studio. She performs on a modern instrument made by Tetsuo Matsuda.