Meet Maya Anjali Buchanan, Violinist Extraordinaire

How lucky can one orchestra be?! Maya Anjali Buchanan, the soloist for our May 14, 2023, concert, was so well received by our audience that she’s coming back to open our 2024-2025 season on November 3 with the Korngold Violin Concerto. Here’s an update of our last interview:

Maya’s parents met in Salt Lake City, where both were in medical school at the University of Utah. After graduation, they found positions in their specialties - her mother in medicine for the eye and her father in geriatrics - in Rapid City, South Dakota, where Maya and her siblings were born and raised. Maya is the youngest of three. Her older sister, Jamuna, is a medical doctor doing her residency in pediatrics in Omaha and her middle sibling, her brother Abe, is pursuing studies in human development and psychology with a tentative goal of becoming a therapist.

While her family wasn’t particularly musical, her mother thought training in classical music important so each of the three siblings played an instrument; for Jamuna and Maya it was the violin and for Abe it was the viola (and later the guitar). In an interview with Cédille Records in 2021, Maya was asked how she got started in music: “I started Kindermusik at age two and my very first introduction was to Grieg’s “Peer Gynt”. I’m told that when this character was being chased by the trolls “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” I would become very animated and start dancing whenever and wherever this was played. I was further introduced to classical music through the Suzuki method and started playing the violin when I was four years old at the local Black Hills Suzuki School in Rapid City.” 

“Living in rural America and pursuing a classical music life has always presented many challenges. So, when I was eight years old, my parents began to fly my siblings and me to another state for music lessons. After five years, I enrolled in a pre-college program, the Music Institute of Chicago Academy, studying with Almita Vamos, because I wanted the more social and collaborative aspect of music such as chamber music and orchestra.” Maya  also participated in CMI’s audience engagement projects and community outreach concerts.

By the time Maya was 13, music had “clicked” and she knew she wanted to become a professional musician. At 16, she captured First Prize in the 2017 Crain-Maling Foundation Chicago Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition and made her solo debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which she still counts as one of the biggest thrills of her life.   

Maya was a top medalist of the 2018 Washington International Competition, 2018 Stulberg International String Competition, 2016 Stradivarius International Violin Competition and 2015 Johansen International Competition. She was named Yamaha’s 2020 Young Performing Artist for Classical Music/Violin and is an alumna of both the 2020 Menuhin International Violin Competition and the 2022 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Since the pandemic, Maya has been performing quite a bit around the U.S., including performances in Michigan, New York and Colorado. A special treat this past summer was a month in France at the Fontainebleau Music Festival, where Maya played a lot of chamber music and classical French music (and very much enjoyed the food!) She said that many of the music teachers she studied with had connections through their own parents or teachers to Debussy, Ravel and other famous French musicians, and regaled her with interesting anecdotes. (When one young man was practicing the piano, Leonard Bernstein came into the studio, sat down at another piano and played with him.)

After her month in France, Maya took a break from the standard festivals but did go back to Rapid City to participate in the Chamber Musc Festival of the Black Hills, a non-profit organization serving the Black Hills and Pine Ridge area to promote classical music and music education. In addition to chamber concerts, Maya was involved in an outreach program for middle and high school students. The organization also includes advisors from the nearby Lakota communities.

Maya’s mother is from India and Maya has always had a love of the music from her mother’s homeland. In an effort to broaden Western classical music traditions, Maya unveils the music of her heritage by presenting pieces unique to her Indian ancestry, bridging her Eastern roots with her Western roots and classical training. She enjoys showcasing works of Indian influence that reflect the form and improvisational quality of Eastern music, blending techniques of both cultures. One of her favorite pieces is Darshan by prominent Indian-American composer Reena Ismail, who delighted Maya by volunteering to prepare a five-minute version of the 15-minute Darshan so that Maya could meet the time limit for a competition piece. 

If Maya has any regrets about her involvement with music it’s that she felt somewhat boxed in by classical music and wishes she had delved more into fiddle, jazz and lesser known composers earlier, especially women composers. Now, when she has any control over the program, she makes a conscious effort to select women composers whose works are not heard very often and has specifically programmed Reena Ismail’s Darshan and Romance by late 19th- and early 20th-century composer Amy Beach. 

These explorations of other types of music may be why Maya says that little if any of her free time is spent listening to classical music. “I spend my entire day with classical music,” she said, “so I want to listen to something different.” Those choices include, among others, old 80s Beatles, Elton John, John Denver, and Queen. She’s also listening to a lot of younger pop and jazz music and, of course, Indian music, especially younger Indian composers like Nina Shekhar.

Maya also enjoys is photographing bugs, she told us with a laugh, particularly close-ups of the many marvelous variations insects come in. When travelling for a concert, she takes along her camera and looks for photo opportunities during breaks from rehearsals and performances.

Currently, Maya is at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in the studio of Ida Kavafian. After receiving her bachelor’s degree last year, she is continuing her studies there for her master’s, a degree that Curtis didn’t offer until 2022. Her seven years in Philadelphia have given her a deep love for the city, which she describes as delightfully walkable, with historic architecture and museums around almost every corner. 

Maya will be performing the Korngold Violin Concerto in our November 3rd concert and describes the piece as her “favorite of all time.” It was the piece she had played many times when she was younger but has not performed it in public since her Curtiss audition in 2018. and is excited to bring it back for this concert. “It sounds like a film score!” she said, referring to  type of music she also loves. “I first heard it when I was nine years old and it was magic. After working on other concertos, like Sibelius, they lost a bit of the initial magic – but Korngold still gives goose bumps!”

What’s next for this talented young violinist? Maya has no definitive plans but she does have a world of possibilities. She wants to continue living in Philadelphia for the time being, perhaps teaching and definitely performing. She’s also exploring study programs in Europe and auditions for orchestra positions .A person “never knows what’s going to happen,” she said but she has options in mind and would be “happy doing anything.” Whatever her direction, we know this extraordinarily violinist will shine!