A Chilean woman with medium length dark hair sits at a black piano. She is wearing red lipstick and a blue-multicolored dress, and has a purple and white flower pinned in her hair

Mahani Teave

Award-winning pianist and cultural ambassador Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism, and the only professional classical musician on her native Easter Island. Twice topping the Billboard charts with her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey, she received raves from critics, including BBC Music Magazine, which noted her “natural pianism” and “magnificent artistry.”

Twice distinguished as one of the 100 Women Leaders of Chile, Mahani has performed for its past five presidents, embassies in over 8 countries, and at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Chile’s Palacio de La Moneda, and Chilean Congress. 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.

Setting aside her burgeoning career at the age of 30, Mahani returned to her island to co-found Toki Rapa Nui with Enrique Icka, a non-profit and first School of Music and the Arts of Easter Island. Offering 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. A self-sustaining architectural wonder, its infrastructure was recognized with a Recyclápolis Environmental National Award, and was built using Earthship Biotecture and the help of acclaimed American architect Michael Reynolds.

Mahani’s unique personal and artistic journey was captured in Emmy-nominated documentary Song of Rapa Nui by 15-time Emmy award-winning filmmaker John Forsen (Amazon Prime Video), and in a just-released children’s book The Girl Who Heard the Music: How One Pianist and 85,000 Bottles and Cans Brought New Hope to an Island (Sourcebooks). She was recently featured in The New York Times, NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS Newshour, Graydon Carter’s Airmail, the BBC, EFE, MPR’s Performance Today, CNN en Español, Amanpour and Company on CNN and PBS, Gramophone, Good Morning America, a Tiny Desk concert, and more.

Winner of the APES Prize for best classical performance in Chile (playing with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile), and the Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition, among others, Mahani also received the Advancement of Women Award from Scotiabank for leadership and promoting music on Easter Island, and was made honorary VP of the World Indigenous Business Forum in 2017. She was named one of 23 “Chileans Creating Future” who are agents of global change creating a better future for Chile and the world.

Making her debut at the age of nine, Mahani toured with famed Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo. She studied at Austral University in Valdivia (Chile), with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and with Fabio Bidini at the Hanns Eisler Musik Hochschule in Berlin.

Mahani currently lives on Easter Island, combining performances with leading the Music School and motherhood. A Steinway Artist, she was “rediscovered” in 2018, which led to her debut recording, released to glowing reviews. She embarks on her North American debut tour in September 2023.

Mahani Teave appears by arrangement with Dworkin & Company.

Photo by Pilar Castro.