MAYU FUNABA

BIO

Mayu Funaba

Born in Chiba, Japan. McGill Bachelor graduated pianist, Mayu Funaba began her music studies at age 4.

She has studied classical piano under Ms.Aki Kuroda, Ms. Kaoru Ujita, and Mr. Nikita Juzhanin, and jazz piano under Jeffry Johnston and Min Rager, also Tango piano under Pablo Estigarribia.

After she graduated from Toride Shyoyo High school's music course, Mayu moved to the United Kingdom where she studied music production at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford Surrey, where she successfully completed the course and received her Higher Diploma certificate.

While studying in the U.K. she started her career as a pianist, working at the Ambassador Theatre in Woking, Surrey.

After finishing her studies at the Academy of Contemporary Music she returned back to Japan where she began performing extensively as a soloist and accompanist playing many different genres of music and at several different music venues around Japan as one of the musicians at Nakamura ltd.

In 2009 Mayu passed The Associated Board of Royal College of Music Diploma with distinction and in 2010. She completed the Stuttgart Music University Master Class under a scholarship from the Tokyo International Association of Artists. In 2013 Mayu composed music for the exhibition of the audio and visual installation piece "a stake in the river" at the Nakanogo Biennial 2013 in collaboration with Junichi Akagawa and Yuki Shindo. She also performed a piano improvisation at the exhibition where she received favorable reviews. In 2019, she participated in the Stow Tango Music festival 2019 where she performed as one of the members of the tango orchestra with maestro Nestor Marconi. In 2021, she started working as a professional ballet piano accompanist at the Ècole supérieur de ballet du Québec.

Currently, she is performing and teaching music based in Montreal where she finished her jazz piano study at bachelor of music program in the McGill university.

RECENT SELECTED MUSICAL ACTIVITIES

Mayu Funaba

• November 2019 : Piano and Marimba music work shop for children in Ohtsu elementary school ( Japan)

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• November 2019 : Piano accompaniment at Saki Kurata (Marimba) First album ‘Solano' release concert

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• August 2019 : Piano performance with Tango Orchestra at Stowe Tango Music Festival 2019

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• June 2019 : Montréal Contemporary Music Lab 2019 (LMCML) with Piano performed sound

experimental ensemble with Esin Gunduz, and music ensemble with Nathan Giroux.

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• May 2019 - Present : Music performance volunteer for the patient at CHUM