Maria Krushevskaya was born in Moscow in 1984 in a family of musicians. She began to study music at the age of ve. In 1992 she entered the Moscow Gnesins’ Middle Special School of Music (class of Professor Milda Agazarian), graduating with distinction in 2002 and subsequently continued her studies at the Gnesins’ Russian Academy of Music from which she also graduated with distinction in 2008. During her studies at the school and the academy she took part in and won prizes at All-Russian and international competitions including the Classical Legacy competition (1994, diploma), the I Russian Youth Harp Competition (Moscow, 1996, 1 prize), the IV Martine Géliot Competition (France, 1999, 4 prize and Special Prize), the IV Lily Laskine Harp Competition (France, 2002, 2 prize) and the 6 International Harp Competition (USA, Bloomington, 2004, 5 prize). In 2007 she took 1 prize and the Gold Medal as well as three special prizes at the 7 International Harp Competition (USA, Bloomington). Maria Krushevskaya is currently the only Russian to have won this competition. In the summer of 2012 she was invited to take part in the Crystal Key Xenia Erdeli International Harp Competition in St Petersburg as a jury member. Maria Krushevskaya appears in recital at major international venues including Carnegie Hall (New York), the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the National Concert Hall of Taipei. The musician also frequently tours throughout France, the USA, Hungary, Lithuania, Switzerland and Russia. In addition to her recital activities, Maria Krushevskaya has recorded two CDs (2006 and 2011) featuring works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Elias Parish Alvars, Albert Zabel, Jacques Charpentier, Joseph Jongen, Mikhail Glinka-Mily Balakirev, Carlos Salzedo, Frédéric Chopin and Domenico Scarlatti as well as the world’s rst-ever recording of a harp version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 12. Maria Krushevskaya has been a grant-recipient from the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation, the Russian Cultural Foundation’s New Names programme and the Russian Performing Arts foundation; has produced recordings for radio and television. A short lm was released in 2010 in the USA about the International Harp Competition in Bloomington, while August 2012 saw the release of the lm Creating Music. The Harp by Kultura TV involving Krushevskaya. From 2007–2013 Maria Krushevskaya was a soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra; since September 2013 she has been a soloist with the harp section of the Mariinsky Orchestra.