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Paula Maya
Paula Maya is an award winning Brazilian pianist, keyboardist, singer, composer and recording artist, nominated Best Brazilian Musician living in the US. Her eleventh release Mar da Minha Terra, Yellow House Records, is available now in all major digital
About Me
Paula Maya is an award winning Brazilian pianist, keyboardist, singer, composer and recording artist,
nominated Best Brazilian Musician living in the US. Her eleventh release Mar da Minha Terra, Yellow
House Records, is available now in all major digital platforms, Mastered by Grammy Nominated
sound engineer Nick Landis. Listen and find all links at https://paulamaya.hearnow.com/mar-da-
minha-terra
Paula Maya has songs in several compilations with artists such as Jimmy Cliff. She holds a degree
from the Brazilian Conservatory of Music in Rio de Janeiro. Her compositions have roots in Brazilian
traditional rhythms and melodies, such as maracatú, baião and samba. They are also inspired and
influenced by bossa nova, jazz, blues, Cuban music and African music.
Her 2019 single 'Refugee' is featured in the compilation 'No More Silence Vol 2, Austin Musicians For
Transformative Justice' 2020, with artists such as Shinyribs, Jackie Venson and Atash. Her song 'Wish
You Were Here (Christmas Eve)' is featured in the compilation 'Holiday Haam Jam Benefit Album'
2012, including bands such as Asleep At The Wheel and Carolyn Wonderland. Leyla Aksu from
KUTX 98.9 writes “Keyboardist, singer and songwriter Paula Maya creates sophisticated and soothing
melodies.” Her band was nominated in the Top Ten Best World Music Bands in the 2014 and 2015
Austin Chonicle Music Awards.
Maya is from the South Zone of Rio, the birth place of Bossa Nova and Antonio Carlos 'Tom' Jobim,
composer of Girl From Ipanema. As a young woman she was lucky to have as mentors giants of
Brazilian music such as Baden Powell, Luizinho Eça, and later Teo Lima. She recalls getting up at
dawn when she was just four years old, while the family was still asleep, to listen to her mom's vinyls
of classical music. 'It would always overcome me with emotion and make me cry.' She was always
playing a small electronic keyboard her mom gave her, and at ten years old started formal classical
piano lessons. Fast foward three years, at a friend's place she witnesses a young man improvising on
the piano. 'How do you do that?' she asked. From that day forward she would not look at the piano
the same way. One year later at a high school music festival contest, she won three awards with the
band she was performing with: Best Arrangement of a Song, Third Place on Best Song, and an
honorary award for Best Musician created for her during the event. After being accepted into the
Federal University of Music for Classical Piano, she started studying Jazz, Harmony and Bossa Nova
with the great pianist and arranger Luizinho Eça, composer of The Dolphin. 'My boyfriend at the time
was the one who suggested I go study with Luizinho. I was so nervous, I almost canceled my first
lesson!' She studied with Eça for two years, and he became one of her most important mentors, often
calling Paula 'Geniozinho' (Petite Genius).
Paula Maya released her first album New Perspective on Wow Mom Records in 1995, a label in
Houston, where she lived for four months after moving from Brazil, before heading to Seattle where
she lived for many years. While in the Northwest she started her own record label Yellow House
Records and her publishing company Palavras e Sounds, BMI, after the title track of her self released
Resurrection First 1/2 was featured in the movie The Learning Curve. Paula Maya released four more
albums with her Seattle band, performed all over the Northwest and was voted Best Brazilian
Songwriter by the Seattle Weekly.
A strong influence in Paula's music is the eclectic community of musicians from all over the world that
she is a part of. Different genres inspire fresh music blends. Besides leading her own groups, Paula
has performed with dozens of bands in a variety of music styles, from the legendary jazz /swing /MPB
Orquestra Tabajara in Brazil, led by the great Severino Araújo, to the Seattle Medieval Women's Choir,
led by the great Margriet Tindemans. She was a member of the Seattle based band Kalass for fifteen
years, led by her friend singer, songwriter, guitarrist Ganga Clamoungou, from Chad, Africa. Paula has
shared the stage with artists such as Caetano Veloso, Leila Pinheiro, Djavan, Vinicius Cantuaria, Teo
Lima and Batacoto, Cyril Neville, Tab Benoit, Mitch Watkins and The Presidents of the United States
of America.
Paula Maya is also a music educator and has been teaching private lessons in classical piano
technique, harmony, music theory and improvisation for thirty years. In addition, she was invited to
teach music workshops at the EMP Museum in Seattle (Museum of Pop Culture.) Currently she is a
Show Director and also teaches piano, voice, music theory and songwriting workshops at Austin
School of Rock (Anderson Lane). Paula Maya holds a degree in Music Theory from the Brazilian
Conservatory of Music, and a degree in English language from Cultura Inglesa.
Maya has also dedicated time and energy to community service and considers herself an activist. She
volunteered for over ten years with the Seattle Red Cross as an After Hours On Call Portuguese
interpreter, and worked for fifteen years as a Portuguese interpreter in the Court System. For twelve
years she co-hosted the weekly Brazilian radio show Raizes on KBCS 91.3 Seattle/ Bellevue College
Radio, raising awareness of Brazilian music in the Northwest and beyond.
Born Paula Burle de Niemeyer, her family names have made a strong mark in the world, mostly in
architecture. Oscar Niemeyer was the architect of Brazil's capital, Brasilia, and his structures can be
found in many parts of the world including United Nations Building in New York City and Orly Airport
in Paris. He was a cousin of Paula's father. Roberto Burle Marx, a cousin of Paula's mother, was a
landscape designer whose work include Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, Copacabana beach promenade
in Rio de Janeiro and Longwood Gardens, in Pennsylvania. He was one of the first Brazilians to speak
out against deforestation. His brother Walter, however, was a composer and pianist. In 1931 he
founded the Rio de Janeiro Philharmonic and conducted numerous premieres with this orchestra,
among them, the first South American performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In 1947 Walter
Burle Marx was appointed Artistic Director of the Rio de Janeiro Opera. In 1949 he left Brazil in order
to become a permanent USA resident and devote himself entirely to composition. Paula's father, Luiz
Carlos Niemeyer, was a lawyer. He passed away in 1998 in Rio de Janeiro. 'My dad loved the beach
and was always in Ipanema as a teenager. He told me he would always see Tom Jobim there, and
that suddenly one day he disappeared. Of course now we know why. Tom was creating one of the
most influential music styles of all time!' Paula's mother, Maria de Lourdes Pereira Carneiro Burle,
created her own version of yoga mouvements mixed with classical dance principles, and taught group
and private lessons for many years. She passed away in 2020 in Rio de Janeiro.
My Jazz Story
I was first exposed to jazz when I was about thirteen or fourteen. I was at a friend's place and I saw this other kid improvising on the piano. I was blown away and said, that's what I wanna do!