Mao Fujita

With an innate musical sensitivity and naturalness to his artistry, 25-year old pianist Mao Fujita has already impressed many leading musicians as one of those special talents which come along only rarely, equally at home in Mozart as the major romantic repertoire, with the New York Times writing, "As soon as his fingers touched the keys, waves of airy filigree, beautifully shaped and accomplished, emerged in almost continuous streams” on the occasion of his US debut at Carnegie Hall in January 2023.

Born in Tokyo, Fujita was still studying at the Tokyo College of Music in 2017 when he took First Prize at the prestigious Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, along with the Audience Award, Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Coeur, which first brought him to the attention of the international music community. He was also the Silver Medalist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where his special musical qualities received exceptional attention from a jury of leading musicians.

In the 24/25 season, Fujita continues his impressive series of recital debuts at major festivals and presenters across Europe, America and Asia, including Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Luxembourg, Essen, Dresden, Linz, Prague, Lucerne, Chicago, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, and Japan, alongside his debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, and at the BBC Proms with the Czech Philharmonic. Other highlights this season include a return to Carnegie Hall for a solo recital at Stern Auditorium as well as a performance with the Wiener Symphoniker under Petr Popelka as part of the celebrations for the reopening of the Theater an der Wien.

Fujita has debuted with conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach, Marek Janowski, Andris Nelsons, Charles Dutoit, Ryan Bancroft, Domingo Hindoyan, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša,  Vasily Petrenko, Lahav Shani, Dalia Stasevska and Kazuki Yamada, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, Münchner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, DSO Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, Frankfurt RadioSymphony, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He appears regularly in solo and chamber music recitals at major piano festivals and halls in Europe and Asia, performing with Renaud Capuçon, Antoine Tamestit, Kian Soltani, Zlatomir Fung, Marc Bouchkov, and Makoto Ozone, among others.

Fujita is an exclusive Sony Classical International artist. In October 2022, his eagerly anticipated debut album on the Sony Classical label, a studio recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas, was released to unanimous acclaim for its transparent sound worlds and vividly-detailed interpretation. He has performed the full sonata cycle at the Verbier Festival, the Wigmore Hall, and across Japan’s major concert halls. His second album on the Sony Classical label, a wide-ranging and ambitious set entitled ‘72 Preludes’ that champions the 24 Preludes of Chopin, Scriabin, and Yashiro, is released in the autumn of 2024.

Starting piano lessons at the age of three, Fujita won his first international prize in 2010 at the World Classic in Taiwan, and became a laureate of numerous national and international competitions such as the Rosario Marciano International Piano Competition in Vienna (2013), Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians (2015), and the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition (2016).