“Canada’s Prince of Piano” – that’s how the Beijing Times, China’s leading English-language newspaper, described Canadian pianist and composer Martin Mayer.
His music has been defined as instrumental fusion – a combination of smooth jazz, classical, pop, and rock. Mayer’s European roots add a good share of thoughtful and longing soul, his North American education contributes a healthy dose of high-octane energy. An explosive mix.
After Mayer realized musicianship was who he was, he would study at Royal Conservatory of Music, major in piano performance at Grant MacEwan University and win the Rachel McKeown Memorial Award for composition. A Chinese Arts Agency took Martin Mayer on a 16-city six-week long concert tour in mainland China in 2001. It would become the biggest tour of any artist in China’s modern history, and all of his tour dates since then would be sold out. He entertained thousands in concert, and millions on Chinese TV.
The “Outstanding Alumnus” winner at the Alberta Provincial Awards Celebrating Excellence was also featured by the Czech National Radio Orchestra in a live concert of his music, recorded and broadcast live from one of Prague’s most historic music venues.
Mayer’s latest album, Unbreakable, was listed as one of the Top 25 New Music Critiques of 2018 (Music Connection Magazine, December 2018), attracting radio airplay from across the globe. It is one of the few independent Canadian records available on Chinese music-streaming platforms QQ, NetEase, QianQian and Kuwo.
Canada’s National Post predicts that Martin Mayer is “poised to take over the world stage,” while VOGUE of Taiwan opines that the pianist’s “passion for music … can only be described as breath-taking,” and an A&R Factory Music Blog concludes: “Thankfully there are artists such as Martin Mayer to inject a bit of excitement and panache into the format of the pop-piano.
