Maiani da Silva
Violinist Maiani (maya-ní) da Silva
is a soloist and chamber musician who has performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. As a saught-after collaborator, Maiani performs and records with a wide array of ensembles and series in the classical and contemporary classical music realm;
the latter being a category of music with a wide scope of style too broad and exciting to be narrowly defined.
Maiani first picked up the violin at age 8 thanks to Ms. Carol Dobbs in South Central Los Angeles, and went on to study with the legends Irina Muresanu (in Boston), and Mela Tenenbaum (in New York). For more details with lots of name dropping, please check out her bio below.
Maiani is a violinist, performer, arranger, and educator. She is a member of the four-time Grammy-winning sextet Eighth Blackbird (8BB), and founder of Brouhaha, a multi-disciplinary solo project that addresses the Anthropocene through a musical and scientific lens. With 8BB, Maiani premiered and recorded the 2025 Grammy-nominated composition as explanation by David Lang (on Cedille records). She was a featured soloist for world premieres of concerti grossi with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the United States Navy Band.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Maiani has collaborated with various other cutting-edge artists—both in the contemporary classical realm and beyond—from premiering works by Joan Tower, Du Yun, Kelley Polar, Viet Cuong, Raven Chacon to working directly with Jonathan Bailey Holland, Julianna Barwick, Louis Andriessen, and George Lewis. She has also performed at Bang on a Can's prestigious Long Play Festival 2025 (for the U.S. premiere of Sophia Jani's Six Pieces for Solo Violin) , and has performed and recorded with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). Some fun pop gigs include performing with Childish Gambino, and Peter Gabriel.
In 2021 Maiani joined the faculty of Yale University's Department of Music as Lecturer, specializing in the performance of contemporary chamber music. She is also faculty of the Blackbird Creative Lab, and been guest faculty at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, among others. Maiani is Artist in Residence and Fellow at Yale's Morse College.
First picking up a violin in a Los Angeles public school with Ms. Carol Dobbs, Maiani went on to study under the tutelage of Irina Muresanu at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and with the legendary Mela Tenenbaum in Brooklyn, N.Y. Other mentors include Lenny Matczynski and Andrew Mark.
Maiani was born in Bahia, Brazil, grew up in Los Angeles, and also lived in Boston, Paris, Mexico City, and San Francisco before settling in woodsy Connecticut. Maiani enjoys friendly disagreements, speaking other languages, reading books about human behavior, and listening to Motown and 90s slow-jams.