Maya Lai is a harpist at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, studying with Yolanda Kondonassis.

Mot recently, Maya is the winner of the 2025 Mitchell-Hogg Competition, jointly organized by the Texas Music Festival and the Houston Symphony. She performed the Ginastera harp concerto during the 2025-2026 season as a featured soloist with the Houston Symphony.

She has performed with numerous orchestras including the Phoenix Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, the Round Top Festival Institute Orchestra, and the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra— working with distinguished conductors such as JoAnn Falletta, Robert Spano, and Leonard Slatkin. An avid chamber musician, she was a member of a chamber ensemble that won the Best of Chamber Music competition at the Round Top Festival Institute in 2024.

In addition to her performing career, Maya was a featured composer in the American Harp Society’s Young Composers Project in 2019, and in 2023 she organized and presented a solo benefit concert that raised over $4,000 for the Children’s Advocacy Center Foundation.

Maya began studying the harp at age nine as a student of Stephen Hartman. She previously studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Harp Performance as a student of Yolanda Kondonassis. 

As the 2025 recipient of the American Harp Society’s Ruth Wickersham Papalia Scholarship Award, Maya will present a solo recital at the American Harp Society and World Harp Congress’ “One Harp World” event in the summer of 2026.