Mao Fujita

Sunday, February 22, 2026 – 3:00 PM

Mairs Concert Hall, Macalester College

"Fujita is a musician of tremendous versatility and taste, with a poetic sense of pulse and eloquent, insightful, fearless articulation." 
— The Times, London

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Program

BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, no. 1

BERG
12 Variations on an Original Theme

MENDELSSOHN
Variations serieuses, Op. 54

WAGNER-LISZT
Isoldes Liebestod

BRAHMS
Sonata No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1

Tokyo-born pianist Mao Fujita, 26, started piano lessons at the age of three and won his first international prize at age 12. In 2017, while still a student at the Tokyo College of Music, he rose to international prominence by winning First Prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland, also receiving the Audience Award and other top honors. In 2019, he captured global attention as Silver Medalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Widely acclaimed for his natural musical sensitivity and poetic touch, Fujita has been praised by The New York Times for his “waves of airy filigree, beautifully shaped and accomplished.”

Fujita moved to Berlin in 2022 for further studies with Kirill Gerstein. He has appeared with leading orchestras and conductors including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and Wiener Symphoniker. In the 25/26 season, Fujita continues his impressive series of recital debuts at major festivals and venues across the globe, including Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Luxembourg, Essen, Dresden, Linz, Prague, Lucerne, Chicago, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, and Japan, alongside his debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, and at the BBC Proms with the Czech Philharmonic. Other highlights this season include a return to Carnegie Hall for a solo recital at Stern Auditorium as well as a performance with the Wiener Symphoniker under Petr Popelka as part of the celebrations for the reopening of the Theater an der Wien.

An exclusive Sony Classical artist, Fujita’s 2022 debut recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas was met with universal acclaim. His second album, 72 Preludes, was released in autumn 2024. He has performed the full Mozart cycle at prestigious venues, including Wigmore Hall and the Verbier Festival, and across Japan’s major concert halls. Equally at home in solo, concerto, and chamber music, he regularly collaborates with top artists, confirming his status as one of the most in-demand pianists of his generation.

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“However, Fujita's fearless demeanor, unflappable mastery, feeling for nuance, and sheer joy in music making consistently impressed me. These qualities happily extend to his Mozart cycle studio recordings. The performances abound with felicities.”

— Classics Today

“In addition to the passages with the greatest technical demands, it was above all the quiet and extremely sensitively performed sections in which the pianist mesmerized the audience with his exquisite playing, often reaching the limits of audibility."

— Wieslocher Woche

“The performance, in its small details and larger scope, seemed controlled by natural forces. Piano technique disappeared, and all those dots and lines on the page seemed caught by a gust of wind, or swept down a mountain stream. The tenderest melody or the most extravagant explosion of octaves were all part of the picture—the unity of nature, if you like.”

— New York Classical Review

“The right-hand semiquavers in the first variation seemed like a series of little pearls, each with its own individuality, assembled in a necklace of amazing radiance, both dazzling and mellow.”

— Bachtrack

“When his fingers touched the keys, though, waves of airy filigree, beautifully formed and finished, emerged in almost uninterrupted streams for his two-hour solo recital.”

— New York Times