Maia Kouznetsova
Viola
Maia Kouznetsova was born in Sverdlovsk, Russia. She began studying violin at the Special School of Music of the Ural Conservatory in Sverdlovsk at the age of six. In 1980, she entered the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied viola with Feodor Drujhinin and chamber music with Mikhail Kopelman. She graduated in 1985 and began her professional career in the USSR Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. She won the Radio and Television Musicians Competition in 1987. From 1988, she was leader of the viola section of the Ministry of Culture Chamber Orchestra. In 1991, she joined the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Vassily Sinaisky, and played in many concerts in the most prestigious venues around the world.
She moved to Portugal in 1996 and, before joining the Gulbenkian Orchestra in 1997, played with the Orquestra do Norte and the Orquestra Clássica do Porto. She plays regularly with musicians from the Gulbenkian Orchestra in recitals of chamber music and at various festivals in Portugal. In 2003, she obtained a Master’s Degree from the Ural State Conservatory, in Ekaterinburg.