MAHANI TEAVE Concert Pianist Educator Environmental Activist
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MAHANI TEAVE concert pianist educator environmental activist ABOUT MAHANI Award-winning pianist and humanitarian Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism. The only professional classical musician on her native Easter Island, she is an important cultural ambassador to this legendary, cloistered area of Chile. Her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey, launched as number one on the Classical Billboard charts and received raves from critics, including BBC Music Magazine, which noted her “natural pianism” and “magnificent artistry.” Believing in the profound, healing power of music, she has performed globally, from the stages of the world’s foremost concert halls on six continents, to hospitals, schools, jails, and low-income areas. Twice distinguished as one of the 100 Women Leaders of Chile, she has performed for its five past presidents and in its Embassy, along with those in Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, China, Japan, Ecuador, Korea, Mexico, and symbolic places including Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Chile’s Palacio de La Moneda, and Chilean Congress. Her passion for classical music, her local culture, and her Island’s environment, along with an intense commitment to high-quality music education for children, inspired Mahani to set aside her burgeoning career at the age of 30 and return to her Island to found the non-profit organization Toki Rapa Nui with Enrique Icka, creating the first School of Music and the Arts of Easter Island. A self-sustaining ecological wonder, the school offers both classical and traditional Polynesian lessons in various instruments to over 100 children. Toki Rapa Nui offers not only musical, but cultural, social and ecological support for its students and the area. It’s infrastructure, recognized by a Recyclápolis Environmental National Award and built by the organization, is unique to Latin America and Polynesia; it uses recyclable materials, solar energy and water collectors, and the organization has developed a large organic agro- ecological project for food sovereignty. Her inspirational story was chronicled by 15-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker John Forsen in a new documentary, Song of Rapa Nui, available globally on Amazon Prime Video. Recent and upcoming features include The New York Times, NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS Newshour, Graydon Carter’s Airmail, the BBC, MPR’s Performance Today, CNN en Español, Amanpour and Company on CNN and PBS, Gramophone magazine and more. Mahani is the winner of numerous international piano competitions and awards, including the APES Prize for best classical music performance in Chile (where she performed Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 1 with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile), the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition, the Merit Prize (arts) from Andrés Bello University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Concerto Competition. In addition, she received the Advancement of Women Award from Scotiabank for her leadership and work promoting music on Easter Island, and was made honorary VP of the World Indigenous Business Forum in 2017. Making her debut at the age of nine, Mahani joined famed Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo on a series of concert tours. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree, with highest honors, from Austral University in Valdivia, Chile, her Masters degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Sergei Babayan, and completed her post- graduate studies in Berlin, Germany, studying with Fabio Bidini at the Hanns Eisler Musik Hochschule. Mahani currently lives on Easter Island, combining concert tours with leading the Music School and motherhood. Mahani is a Steinway artist. She was “rediscovered” in 2018, which led to her debut recording, Rapa Nui Odyssey; A Mahani Teave Piano Recital, released January of 2021 on the Rubicon Classics Label to glowing reviews. PRESS CNN INTERNATIONAL / CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR “A musical odyssey to one of the most remote places on Earth… a fascinating story...her wonderful music” GRAMOPHONE [UK] “Breadth and grandeur… heroic rhetoric and caressing lyricism… exquisitely poised… genuine eloquence. As fulfilling and enriching the musical culture of Rapa Nui surely must be, one hopes that Mahani Teave will somehow find a way to share her beautifully wrought, heartfelt pianism with audiences beyond her remote island.” RADIO NATIONAL [AUSTRALIA] “A stunning new album” RECORD GEIJUTSU MAGAZINE [JAPAN] 'Tokusen' (CD of the Month) “I was also very surprised to hear this recording...filled with wonderful elegance...Chopin's "Barcarolle" reminds me of Dinu Lipatti.” CLASSICALMUSIC Magazine (BBC) [UK] “Natural pianism. There’s genuine virtuosity, without one note of bluff, bluster or vulgarity…wide expressive range exquisitely controlled and intensely poetic…sincere, pure and magnificent artistry.” FRANCE MUSIQUE [FRANCE] “Mahani Teave, the virtuoso pianist from Easter Island...An exemplary journey.” GRAMOPHONE [UK] “Teave’s Chopin-playing inhabits a world all its own, almost painterly in its subtle colours and marked everywhere by an exquisitely poised cantabile… a sensitive diptych of genuine eloquence.” CONCERTONET “This isn’t your ordinary “Piano Recital!!” Perhaps being raised on a remote island in the South Pacific brings with it a nuanced suavity. Mahani Teave’s style has a gauzy, breezy trim in the sails. What a sendoff!” BBC NEWS [UK] “She is regarded as one of the region’s finest pianists.” CHILENOW [CHILE] “The young virtuoso…impressed with her talent, skill, and aplomb…received standing ovation at concert at the Embassy of Chile.” CNN EN ESPANOL “Virtuoso pianist” ICIMAG [CANADA] “…a woman with great charisma and a wisdom that is overwhelming given her early age. Pianist, director of an NGO, mother, referent of an original culture. It is not surprising, then, that in 2007 she was chosen among the 100 Women Leaders in the country, by the Mujeres Empresarias foundation and the newspaper El Mercurio, and that in 2016 she was distinguished with the Advancement of Women Award, from Scotiabank, for her leadership, discipline and entrepreneurial capacity.” TRAVELPULSE “Mahani Teave—guardian of the island’s traditions and an internationally recognized pianist.” EL DIARIO [MEXICO] “Few artists have achieved what the Chilean pianist Mahani Teave achieved at the Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda venue…inexhaustible energy and passion. The outstanding national artist captivated the audience” TELETRECE/T13 [CHILE] “Cool women: Mahani Teave, the virtuoso pianist” TWICE at the top of the Billboard Chart For the weeks of March 13 & May 29, 2021 Mahani Teave is the First Chilean Artist to Reach #1 on the Billboard Classical Charts (As announced by the Sociedad Chilena de Autores e Intérpretes Musicales, SCD Chile) 15-time Emmy Award-winning Director/Producer John Forsen’s documentary film about Mahani Teave nominated for 2021 NATAS NW Emmy Award in the category of Documentary – Cultural/Historical. natasnw.org/nominations-recipients Credit...Miguel Sayago/Alamy Photo By Thomas May Feb. 26, 2021 From her home, halfway up the highest hill on Rapa Nui, Mahani Teave was describing the power of nature there to overwhelm. “On one side, I have an almost 180-degree view of the ocean,” she said in a recent interview. “A big fog is coming in from the hill on the other side.” The profusion of stars gives the black of the sky a seemingly “papier-mâché texture,” she said. When the sounds of crickets cease, profound silence completes “a stunning experience for the senses.” Teave, 38, learned to appreciate such stirring encounters while growing up on Rapa Nui — also known as Easter Island, the name imposed by European interlopers in 1722. From there, one of the remotest inhabited islands on the planet, this pianist went on to earn a place on the international concert stage. But rather than press on with a career of incessant touring, and quite possibly the only professional classical performer to emerge from Rapa Nui to date, she decided to return and establish the first music school on the small island nearly a decade ago. But she hasn’t stopped playing. Teave’s debut album, “Rapa Nui Odyssey,” was recently released on the British label Rubicon Classics. The recording project inspired “Song of Rapa Nui,” a new documentary streaming on Amazon Prime, directed by the Emmy Award-winning producer and filmmaker John Forsen and narrated by Audra McDonald. It was at Teave’s island school that the Seattle-based musician, rare string instrument collector and arts patron David Fulton had a chance encounter with her as part of a world cruise with his wife in the spring of 2018. “After we had visited the moai” — the monolithic statues of revered ancestors that symbolize Rapa Nui — “we were taken to the school to hear a performance,” Fulton said. “The kids had flowers in their hair and used the back porch of the school as a stage.” Then Teave began playing on a wobbly upright piano. “It was so moving and unexpected, even surreal,” Fulton said. “She played a serious program. I thought: This is not a good pianist; this is one of the world’s greatest pianists.” Fulton was shocked to discover that Teave had never released a recording. He invited her to Seattle to put down some of her favorite repertoire at Benaroya Hall, engaging the Grammy Award-winning engineer Dmitriy Lipay, who works with the Seattle Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Lipay recalls that he was concerned about whether there would be sufficient studio time for the challenging program Teave had conceived — Bach, Liszt, Handel, Scriabin, Chopin and Rachmaninoff — with a musician who had never before recorded in the studio. “With Mahani we were in for a big surprise,” he said. “The recording process with her was very similar to the golden years, when artists were willing and able to give a complete performance in one take.” Forsen, with whom Fulton had collaborated on four previous films, was asked to tape the recording sessions. As they learned more of Teave’s story, they realized it merited a full documentary.