On Saturday’s live broadcast, we feature 18-year-old violinist Maya Buchanan, the winner of the 2017 Crain-Maling Foundation Chicago Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition. As a result of winning the competition, Maya had the incredible opportunity to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in four solo performances at Symphony Center under the baton of Maestro Edwin Outwater.
Other major performances during the 2017/18 season include her debut recital at Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavík at the 2017 Harpa International Music Academy Festival, her China debut with the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra, and her debut with the Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra as the First Prize Winner of the 2017 Bonnie and Lee Malmed SVSO Young Artist Competition. Engaged to substitute for soloist Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Maya performed Bruch’s violin concerto with the Kenosha Symphony Orchestra on opening night. Upcoming performances include her debuts with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra as the First Place Winner of the 2018 Blount-Slawson National Young Artist Competition and at the 2018 Peninsula Music Festival. She will be featured in upcoming recitals at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series and Musicians Club Of Women “Award Winners in Concert” Series in Chicago.
Maya was also a medalist of the 2017 Cooper International Violin Competition, Second Laureate of the 2016 Stradivarius International Violin Competition and the only American violinist to be awarded a top prize at the 2015 Johansen International Competition.
She is the recipient of the 2017 Farwell Trust Award from the Musicians Club of Women Scholarship Audition. Maya, an alumna of the Music Institute of Chicago Academy, currently studies with Almita Vamos. She will attend the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Ida Kavafian. Maya acknowledges the generous loan of her c.1730 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin from the Stradivari Society of Chicago.