2022 - Senior Piano

Maria Mo

Maria Mo has performed in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and across Europe as both solo recitalist and chamber musician. She was associate artist at the 2014 Australian Cello Awards (Sydney, Australia) and guest artist at the 2010 Semaine Internationale de Piano festival (Blonay, Switzerland), as well as the Gesellschaft für Musiktheater in Vienna. She has toured as concerto soloist with Opus Chamber Orchestra, the Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Symphony Orchestra and the Auckland Youth Orchestra.


In 2009, she was the winner of the Royal Over-Seas League Arts/Pettman International Scholarship for a New Zealand Chamber Ensemble as pianist for the Leonari trio, which led to an 8-week concert tour and study trip of the United Kingdom in 2010, playing prestigious venues and festivals such as St. Martin-in-the-fields and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The trio also toured with Chamber Music Zealand in 2012 to critical acclaim. In December 2018, Maria had the honour of being selected to perform for the South Korean President Moon Jae-In on his inaugural trip to New Zealand.

Maria studied with Katherine Austin as a Sir Edmund Hillary Music Scholar at the University of Waikato where she received the Hillary Medal and the Lili Kraus Piano Award, and graduated with a Master of Music with First Class Honours in 2009. In 2013 she graduated with Excellence under Professor Doris Adam at the Vienna Conservatory, and received further training from Professor Christopher Hinterhuber at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

In 2022, Maria completed a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Waikato, where she researched the legacy of Janetta McStay, the renowned pianist and New Zealand’s first full-time lecturer in piano at the University of Auckland from 1963 – 1982.