Biography

Maki Yoneta began studying the piano at the age six. She gained her BMus degree in March 1996 with first class honours from the Musashino College of Music in Tokyo where she was the Naoaki Fukui Memorial Scholar, studying under Aiko Tokugawa and Julia Ganeva.

Maki then came to London and entered the Royal College of Music in September 1996 as a scholar on the postgraduate Soloist programme studying with Peter Element (Piano Solo) and John Blakely (Piano Accompaniment). She won the Cornelius Fisher Piano Prize in 1997, and gained her Diploma in Advanced Performance Solo/Ensemble Recitalist in July 1998. As the 1999 winner of the Hatfield Music Festival, Maki performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Philharmonic Orchestra at the University of Hertfordshire in December 1999.

After graduating from the RCM as a soloist, Maki went to the Guildhall School Music & Drama where she studied on the Professional Accompanist Course with Eugene Asti, Gordon Back and Robin Bowman, and gained her Master’s degree in 2001. She then worked for the Opera Course at the GSMD as a repetiteur and earned her Diploma in 2002. She attended masterclasses with Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Malcolm Martineau and Roger Vignoles.

Maki was a participant in the concert series at St Martin-In-The-Fields as both as a soloist (2000) and accompanist (2003). She participated in the Franz-Schubert-Institute (Austria) Summer Course 2003 Poetry and Performance of the German Lied for singer and accompanists, for which Maki was awarded a full scholarship. This enabled her to work with such people Elly Ameling, Helmut Deutsch, Keith Engen, Wolfgang Holzmair, Jorma Hynninen, Rudolf Jansen, Christoph Prégardien and Edith Wiens.

Maki won the Birmingham Accompanist of the Year Award in 2003. She played Rhian Samuel’s “Trinity; three songs for high voice, flute and piano to texts by Anne Stevenson” for the winners concert in March 2005. It was a world premiere.

She played with a soprano singer for Christina Ludwig’s Lieder Masterclass, which was part of the Park Lane Group’s series at the Wigmore Hall in January 2004. This masterclass and players received a good review by the Evening Standard.

After working as a staff accompanist at the Guildhall School Music & Drama, she moved up to Glasgow, Scotland and studied on the repetiteur’s course with the full scholarship at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama from 2004. During her study, she worked for many opera productions and opera scenes. One of the operas, Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy was arranged and accompanied by two pianos. Maki played one of the pianos and toured in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. This piano accompanied opera production got good reviews from “Herald” and “Opera Now!”.

She also played with a soprano for the dinner party by the Scottish First Mister in the Bute House in Edinburgh. She won the first prize with the same soprano in the Hans-Sachs Duo Competition with a soprano singer in Nuremberg, Germany in 2006. She also earned The Leonard Hancock Prize for Young repetiteurs in the UK.

After her study, she worked as a staff accompanist for the Vocal Department of the Royal Scottish Academy Music & Drama and the Scottish Opera Educational Department. She has also been a deputy piano teacher for the Scottish Academy Junior Department.