Maho Yamaguchi is a pianist, Japanese calligrapher, and collaborative pianist. She was born in Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture and spent her childhood in Yokohama and Tokyo.

 

At the age of 11, she began playing the piano, and studied with Hiromi Fujita and Mari Takagi during her pre-college years.

 

Throughout her childhood, playing the piano with her teacher was a blissful experience. During her lessons, playing piano duos inspired her childlike mind. Moreover, her teacher’s accompaniment showed her that a great joy of playing music is in the way music is played differently for each piece. When she played, she felt as if she was a soloist playing with the orchestra. Most importantly, she experienced a connection with others that she felt could not be expressed with words—it could only be realized through music. Naturally, she loved to play music with others.

 

Maho received her bachelor’s degree from the Toho School of Music in 2016, under the tutelage of Prof. Nobutatsu Kawashima and Prof. Kazuo Mise.

 

After moving to Boston, Massachusetts, she received a merit-based scholarship to the Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she completed a Master of Music in Piano Performance under the tutelage of Prof. Max Levinson in 2019.

 

Maho has participated in master classes with renowned pedagogues such as Pascal Devoyon and Janice Weber.

 

During her time at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, she participated in the Chichibu International Music Festival in Japan as well as the Montecito International Music Festival, and was selected for the Gala Final Concert as a soloist. Additionally, she has performed as a soloist with the orchestra at the Chichibu International Music Festival. She was also selected with the flutist as an outstanding student for the concert of the “Evening of Wind Music” organized by the Toho Gakuen School of Music.

 

In addition to being an accomplished solo pianist, Maho has been performing energetically with several instruments as an accompanist. She was nominated and selected as an accompanist to perform with members of the Boston Conservatory faculty, including professors Eli Epstein, Joseph Foley, and Angel Subero at the Opening Recital (Berklee / Boston Conservatory Brass Week) in Boston. 

 

Through her numerous activities, her aim of performing is to resonate with both other performers and listeners. In addition to performing music, she devotes much of her time to creating works of Japanese calligraphy. For more information and samples of Maho’s calligraphy works, please visit: click

 

Over the years, Maho has received several awards, including:

    • the special prize at the 2024 Pacific Stars International Piano Competition 

    • 3rd prize 4th International Artists Competition 

    • 1st prize 1st J.S.Bach ProMUSIC international competition

    • the Espoir Prize at the 24th Osaka International Music Competition

    • Winning Prize at the 23rd Osaka International Music Competition 

    • 2nd Prize at the 2021 North International Music Competition

    • 1st Prize at the Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition

    • Winning Prize at the 34th and 35th Machida Classical Music Competition

    • Winning Prize at the 20th All Japan Classical Music Competition for High School Girls

 

Maho is currently based in Japan, performing as a chorus pianist of Nihon University and a Kanki-No-En. Additionally, She is playing with Mio Fujimoto as “MsDuo” in both Okayama and Tokyo.  She is providing performance recordings of BGM for English plays for middle and high school to school.