Mao Fujita

The Japanese pianist Mao Fujita was born in Tokyo in 1998 and began playing piano at the age of three. After completing his studies at the conservatory of his native city, he put the finishing touches on his pianistic training with Kirill Gerstein in Berlin. Fujita won his first international competition at the age of twelve with The World Classic in Taiwan. Three years later, he triumphed at the Rosa­rio Marciano Competition in Vienna, and, in 2017, at the Concours Clara Haskil in Switzerland, where he also garnered the Audience Prize, the Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Cœur. In 2019, Mao Fujita took part in the celebrated International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he won the Silver Medal. He was subsequently invited to perform at numerous festivals and prestigious concert series, including the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Riga Jurmala Music Festival. Mao Fujita has collaborated with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Munich and Israel Philharmonics, the Cleveland and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras, and the Yomiuri Nippon and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestras. In 2022, he made a spectacular debut with the Filarmonica della Scala performing the solo part in Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto; Riccardo Chailly then engaged him for Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto at Lucerne Festival and took him on a European tour in 2023. In 2024, Fujita made his debuts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He undertook tours with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic last season. In the fall of 2022, Mao Fujita released his recording of the complete piano sonatas of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, for which he was awarded the Opus Klassik. He performed the complete cycle at the Verbier Festival in 2021 and at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2023. His latest album with preludes by Chopin, Scriabin, and Akio Yashiro will be released in September 2024.

Lucerne Festival debut on 13 August 2022 performing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly.

July 2024