Coloratura Mezzo-soprano Maya Amir is a versatile interpreter of Baroque repertoire whose artistic work brings historically informed performance into dialogue with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern musical traditions. Praised by L’Arena Verona as “an excellent virtuoso with acrobatic coloraturas, great actress and musical performer,” her voice was described by Ôlyrix Paris for its “deep timbre” and “high and shining notes.”
In 2026, Maya returned to the Varaždin Baroque Evenings with Amor Mediterráneo, an Iberian and Mediterranean recital, and to the Znojmo Music Festival with her ensemble Avventura Barocca, presenting a programme bringing together Baroque and Middle Eastern musical traditions. In November 2026, she makes her debut in Prague’s intercultural project Light of Understanding.
Selected in 2019 for Joyce DiDonato’s masterclasses at Carnegie Hall, broadcast live on medici.tv, Maya later joined the Académie Musicale Philippe Jaroussky as a young artist from 2021 to 2022. Internationally acclaimed countertenor Andreas Scholl, whom she first met in 2017, has since become one of her important artistic mentors.
In 2024, Maya founded Avventura Barocca in Basel, an ensemble dedicated to creating a dialogue between Baroque and Eastern musical traditions. Bringing together musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds, the ensemble combines historically informed performance with Sephardic, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern traditions. Following its appearance at the Znojmo Music Festival in 2026, Opera PLUS praised the ensemble’s “high technical level, distinctive musicality and sensitivity to different stylistic foundations,” observing that “the individual musical worlds stood out in their differences, while at the same time finding places where they could naturally meet and influence one another.” Its debut album, Tessitura di Amanti, was recorded live at the “Friendship 7” studio of Andreas Scholl.
Maya’s operatic repertoire includes Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Piacere (Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno), and the title roles in Handel’s Rodelinda and Alcina. In 2024, she made her staged debut as Abra in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans at the Znojmo Music Festival.
Her appearances include La Seine Musicale in Paris, Teatro Ristori Verona, Santa Maria della Pietà in Venice, Bach-Archiv Leipzig, the Arvo Pärt Centre, Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn, and Zucker Hall at Heichal HaTarbut in Tel Aviv. Festival appearances include the Varaždin Baroque Evenings, Znojmo Music Festival, Glasperlenspiel Festival in Estonia, Festtage Alter Musik Basel, and the Abu Gosh Festival. She has collaborated with ensembles including Barrocade, Czech Ensemble Baroque, Ensemble La Phoenix, Tel Aviv Soloists, Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, and Hortus Musicus.
Alongside her work in Baroque music, Maya develops repertoire rooted in her Mediterranean and Israeli heritage. In 2022, she released her first live album, Night on the Waters, featuring original Hebrew compositions by her mother, composer Aviva Amir, and Maya herself, drawing inspiration from classical, Spanish and Arabic musical traditions. Their collaboration continues with “Maim Haim” (The Fountain of Living Waters), which weaves Maya’s voice with archival recordings of her grandmother and the musicians of Avventura Barocca. The song forms part of her forthcoming album, scheduled for release in 2027.
Maya was awarded Third Prize at the 2018 Froville International Baroque Singing Competition and Silver Prize at the 2018 Manhattan International Music Competition.
She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Studies from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University, where she studied with Efrat Ben-Nun, and a Master’s Degree in Opera Singing from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig under Elvira Dreßen. She later continued her studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, completing a second Master’s Degree in Voice Pedagogy under Rosa Dominguez in 2021.
