Mao Fujita made his debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall and has appeared with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has collaborated with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly and Andris Nelsons, and he has signed an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical. A major highlight was his tour of Asia and Europe with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Semyon Bychkov as the soloist in Dvořák’s Piano Concerto. At the age of 25, all of that might have been enough, but the Japanese pianist Mao Fujita will be bringing much more to his Prague festival recital. Critics have noted the originality and freshness he brings to Mozart, even giving his music a Beethoven-like seriousness. That seriousness is brought with equal insistence to the poetic sounds of Chopin’s Ballades and Nocturnes. For his recital at the Rudolfinum, Fujita is slated to play music by both of these Viennese classicists. Chopin’s world of colours will also shine through to listeners in the music of the Russian genius Alexander Scriabin and in 24 Preludes by Japanese composer Akio Yashiro. The music of those two composers will leave no doubt with the listeners for even a moment that they both loved Chopin’s nobility of sentiment. The concert will conclude with some piano tableaux by Franz Liszt.

With an innate musical sensitivity and naturalness to his artistry, 24-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.

Highlights in the 2023/24 season include tours with the Gewandhaus Orchestra (Andris Nelsons), the Czech Philharmonic (Semyon Bychkov), and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo (Kazuki Yamada), concerts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), Israel Philharmonic (Iván Fischer), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Frankfurt Radio Symphony, as well as recitals at the Elbphilharmonie, among others. Fujita has performed at the Elbphilharmonie, Heidelberger Frühling, KlavierFestival Ruhr, and on tour in Japan and China.

Fujita has debuted with conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Marek Janowski, Andris Nelsons, Lahav Shani, Christoph Eschenbach, Vasily Petrenko, and Ryan Bancroft, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, Münchner Philharmoniker, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, DSO Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, 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.

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).

Fujita moved to Berlin in 2022 to continue his studies with Kirill Gerstein.

source: Intermusica

The Rudolfinum is one of the most important Neo-Renaissance edifices in the Czech Republic. In its conception as a multi-purpose cultural centre it was quite unique in Europe at the time of its construction. Based on a joint design by two outstanding Czech architects, Josef Zítek and Josef Schultz, a magnificent building was erected serving for concerts, as a gallery, and as a museum. The grand opening on 7 February 1885 was attended by Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, in whose honour the structure was named. In 1896 the very first concert of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra took place in the Rudolfinum's main concert hall, under the baton of the composer Antonín Dvořák whose name was later bestowed on the hall.