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Forging Your Own Path, with Maiani da Silva

Violinist, performer, and music explorer Maiani da Silva enjoys a richly varied career, feeling equally at home playing in concert halls, recording studios, award shows, breweries, and even a parked car, once. An omnivorous contemporary musician, Maiani is most dedicated to works by living people, and can be found playing percussion, arranging, singing, and even unintentionally interpretive dancing during measures of rest.

Maiani is the violinist with the four-time Grammy-winning Eighth Blackbird, and the co-founder of The Furies, an experimental duo. Both ensembles were featured among other contemporary artists in CAP UCLA’S Tune In Festival 2021.​

Most recently, Maiani was a featured soloist with Eighth Blackbird for world premieres of concertos with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the United States Navy Band. ​

Maiani has collaborated with various other cutting-edge contemporary artists—both in the contemporary classical realm and beyond—from Louis Andriessen, Ted Hearne, George Lewis, Raven Chacon, Du Yun, to Childish Gambino, Peter Gabriel, Kanye West, Julianna Barwick, Taylor Mac, Rod Stewart, Avery*Sunshine, and Celeste for the Oscars 2021, among others. ​

Not one to shy away from bold interdisciplinary productions and projects, Maiani premiered David Lang's composition as explanation, a staged work for Eighth Blackbird directed by Anne Bogart. As Concertmaster/leader, she also premiered and recorded The Industry's Sweet Land, Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music, as well as Mac's Holiday Sauce. She also performed the West Coast premiere of Ragnar Kjartansson’s Bliss, as part of the L.A. Phil's Fluxus Festival. ​

In 2021 Maiani joined the faculty of Yale's Department of Music as Lecturer, specializing in the performance of contemporary chamber music. She is also a Fellow at Yale's Morse College.​

Maiani studied under the tutelage of Irina Muresanu at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Mela Tenenbaum in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Maiani was born in Bahia, Brazil, grew up in Los Angeles, and also lived in Boston, Mexico City, Paris, and San Francisco before settling in rural Connecticut. Maiani also enjoys having in-person philosophical debates over a delicious glass of wine.

For more info: https://www.maianidasilva.com