A violinist and a native of Kilkenny, Maria is a member of the Banbha Quartet, supported by the National String Quartet Foundation, the recently founded Marble Collective and performs in Duo partnership with Dr. Gabriela Mayer. She also performed in April 2022 with the Prizm Trio as part of the Cork Orchestral Society Series.
In 2010, Maria moved to London to join Southbank Sinfonia; there she was awarded the position of Leader, and chosen to perform in their chamber music showcase at Wigmore Hall. Over the following ten years, Maria worked with some of the UK's most prestigious orchestras, including the BBC Concert and Symphony Orchestras, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She recently completed a Music Network Residency in St. John’s Arts Centre Listowel with the Marble Collective and looks forward to a nationwide tour with the Banbha Quartet in September 2022.
Maria a recipient of the RDS Music Bursary, winner of the Heineken Violin Competition and she was awarded the Agility Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2021. She studied at the CIT Cork School of Music with Ruxandra Petcu-Colan and subsequently at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne with Emilian Piedicuta.
Maria moved back to Kilkenny in 2019 to live on a farm in the countryside with her two children! Maria also works regularly with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ Orchestras, the Irish National Opera and is a Lecturer at the MTU Cork School of Music.
Here’s a fun ‘getting to know’ performers I did before a performance at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork - click here