MAYA BENNARDO

Violin

Violinist Maya Bennardo is an active performer and teacher living in Brooklyn, NY. Maya is passionate about opening the dialogue between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, an ensemble that works to commission new works and perform lesser-known pieces for their instrumentation. She has worked with new music ensembles such as ensemble mise-en, Nouveau Classical Project, Hotel Elefant, Contemporaneous, Mimesis Ensemble, and [Switch~ Ensemble]. Maya also performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist, Karl Larson. 
Recent highlights include a residency with andPlay + Ravi Kitappa at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute to work on a new piece funded by Chamber Music America, performances on Sound of Stockholm festival (Sweden), Omaha Under the Radar, seven andPlay premieres, and the premiere of a new work for solo speaking violinist by Jesse Diener-Bennett. Maya was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at Mass MoCa 2014/15, a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in 2014, and a participant in the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik 2016.
Maya also enjoys a rich teaching life with students ranging in age from four years old to adult. She teaches at the Brooklyn Waldorf School and in her private studio. She graduated from NYU with a Master of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music. She studied with Gregory Fulkerson at both institutions.