Maia Cabeza
Co-Leader
Canadian-American violinist Maia Cabeza enjoys a multi-faceted performing career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She has been successful in several international competitions, and her major awards include 1st prize at the 2013 Leopold Mozart Violin Competition in Augsburg and 2nd prize (Bach-prize) of the 2018 Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. As a soloist, she has performed with several notable orchestras including, among others, the Augsburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Edmonton Symphony and Detroit Symphony. Her solo and chamber music performances have brought her to some of the world’s most important halls, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Teatro Colón and Berlin Philharmonie. In 2016, she released a positively acclaimed debut CD on Oehms Classics which features contrasting solo and chamber works by Mozart and Schnittke.
Maia is extremely passionate and dedicated to chamber music, and she has performed at many prestigious festivals such as Marlboro Music Festival, Lockenhaus, Rheingau, Kronberg “Chamber Music Connects the World”, Ravinia, Saronic Music Festival, Krzyżowa Music, Southwell, Verbier Festival Academy, and Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, taking part in the tour group of 2015. In these festivals and others, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with distinguished musicians such as Vilde Frang, Nobuko Imai, Steven Isserlis, Kim Kashkashian, Christian Tetzlaff, Dénes Várjon and various members of the Cleveland, Guarneri, and Juilliard String Quartets. In addition to her solo and chamber music activities, Maia performs regularly with top European orchestras. She was recently appointed co-leader of Aurora Orchestra, and is also a member of Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Principal Second of Kammerakademie Potsdam. She has been invited to guest lead orchestras such as Czech Philharmonic, Haydn Philharmonie and Orchestra Leonore, among others. Maia is also interested in historically informed performance practice and performs regularly in chamber ensembles on baroque and classical violin.
Maia was born in Japan in 1992 and is of Argentinean heritage. She received her Bachelor’s Degree at the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, USA) studying with Ida Kavafian and Joseph Silverstein, and was a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Karajan Orchestra Academy between 2012-2014. She continued her studies and received her masters degree in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in the class of Antje Weithaas. Maia performs on a Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi violin (circa. 1750) on loan by the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.
Aurora Memory
It’s so hard to pick just one Aurora project, but one particularly memorable concert for me personally was our performance of Shostakovich’s 9th symphony at the BBC Proms in 2018. It was my first time memorising a symphony, and it was so thrilling to witness how my initial trepidation about learning the piece turned into an absolutely exhilarating performance experience. I’ll always remember just how palpable the energy was throughout the orchestra and Royal Albert Hall audience collectively.