Barbara Mayer enthusiastically devotes herself to her own compositions and improvisations as well as interdisciplinary music-art projects with which she creates individual concert programs.
The musician began playing the piano at the age of five. She made her debut as a pianist at the age of 14 with the Piano Concerto in G minor by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in the "Concert for Young Talents of the Augsburg District". After graduating from high school, Barbara Mayer studied at the music universities Mozarteum Salzburg and Anton Bruckner University Linz with Adriana Hölszky, Cordelia Höfer-Teutsch and Margit Haider-Dechant composition, piano pedagogy and piano concert subject. She received further artistic impulses as an OEAD scholarship holder for composition at the Lisbon Music Academy and in master courses with well-known artists such as Alexander Jenner, Anatol Ugorsky, Masaaki Hirasawa, Filippo Faes, Konstantin Bogino and Roger Muraro. Barbara completed the master's examinations in her subjects Mayer with distinction. She also completed her subsequent doctorate in musicology on the piano concerto by the Brazilian composer Hekel Tavares (1896-1969) with excellent marks. Her dissertation was published by Springer-Verlag in 2022. In addition to her review and publication activities, she gives lectures at congresses and symposiums and cooperates with musicological institutions such as the Instituto Musica Brasilis in Rio de Janeiro.
For her compositional, pianistic and scientific achievements, Barbara Mayer received several grants (e.g. grant “Neustart Kultur” from the German Music Fund, grant “Young Art and New Paths” from the Free State of Bavaria, research grant from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research for her dissertation at the Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro, scholarship from the Richard Wagner Foundation for the Bayreuth Festival). She is the first female composer in the then 50-year history of the prize to be awarded the art prize for composition by the city of Augsburg. The jury on Barbara Mayer's work: "Barbara Mayer shows amazing professionalism in her submitted works and proves that she knows how to move with the current state of composing with certainty. She combines structural clarity with the ability to create subtle tones great atmospheric density and sensually intense sound experiences. In her works, she succeeds in combining seemingly incompatible elements. She bridges the boundaries of styles and genres, she is bursting with ideas and expressiveness and, with great enthusiasm for experimentation, shows that she can also include non-musical creative means. The The jury believes a sensational development is possible."
Barbara Mayer's wide-ranging oeuvre includes solo, chamber music, orchestral and electronic works, which are commercially distributed by the Wiener Universaledition. In 2010/2011 she received a commission from the Augsburg Philharmonic for a concerto for piano, percussion and orchestra "Tristan and Isolde" by Richard Wagner. The conclusion of this orchestral project was the premiere of her work "Tristanesk" with the city's Philharmonic Orchestra and she herself at the piano in the "Symphony Concerts" series in March 2011. Her compositions were performed by herself or by well-known ensembles such as the Augsburg Philharmonic, the OENM, the Ligeti Quartet (London) at festivals and concert series (e.g. "Young Generation Festival" of the ZKM Karlsruhe, piano festival "Piano City Pordenone"/Italy, Festival-Estival Annecy/France, international concert series "Klangfarben der Organ", Salzburg ) at home and abroad (Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Brazil etc.), including in renowned concert halls such as the Vienna Hall of the Mozarteum or the Gasteig in Munich.
Since March 2022, Barbara Mayer represented by the US artist management Price Attractions Numerous concerts, musicological activities and other composition commissions e round off their musical career.
