Born in Tokyo in 1998, Mao Fujita’s first international acclaim was at age 18, when he won the 27th Concours international de piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, also winning three special awards: the Audience Award, the Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Coeur. In June 2019, he won 2nd Prize at the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he was welcomed by ovations at each round and was watched online from all around the globe. He performed the 3rd movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Valery Gergiev at the final Gala in St Petersburg, where Maestro Gergiev called Fujita “the surprising new discovery” among the pianists.

At his subsequent London debut, he performed this concerto in full with Maestro Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra before performing the same work at his debut in Seoul. This season he is invited to perform in Germany, Moscow, Latvia, and Switzerland, among many others.
His recent highlight performances include the Jolivet Piano Concerto with Mo. Kazuyoshi Akiyama & the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 2019, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Mo. Kachun Wong & the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in 2019, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Mo. Oleg Caetani & the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2018. He was invited to perform at festivals such as the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Verbier Festival as an Academy Musician, and to perform at the Louis Vuitton Foundation's "New Generation Series" in 2018.

Fujita’s concerto repertoire includes works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, and many others. He also has a wide variety of recital repertoire, ranging from Bach and Scarlatti to Stravinsky and Ligeti. Fujita has also won numerous other awards both in Japan and abroad, including 1st Prize in the Junior Section of “The World Classic” in Taiwan in 2010, 1st Prize in the Elementary School Division of the National Competition of the Student Music Concours of Japan, 1st Prize at the International Rosario Marciano Piano Competition in Austria in 2013, 1st Prize at the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians in 2015, 1st Prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Academy Competition in 2016, and 3rd Prize at the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition in the United States in 2016. Fujita’s recordings are available on the Naxos label.

This is his first appearance at PMF.