When Maya Wagner stumbled across Tinashe’s home studio tour on YouTube in 2013, her life-long love of songwriting and vocal performance bloomed from a hobby into a career goal. At 12 years old, Maya invested her meager life savings into creating her own micro-studio in her Central New Jersey bedroom, and the rest was history.

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With the Ableton Live Intro license that came with her first MIDI controller, the AKAI MPK49, an AT-2035 condenser mic, a set of M-AUDIO headphones, and a less-than-sophisticated LG laptop, Maya began teaching herself to produce music.

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Apart from being active in her high school’s choir and theatre programs, Maya spent the majority of her free time locked away in her bedroom watching tutorial video after tutorial video and creating song after song.

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During her sophomore year of high school, Maya’s choir director and musical mentor mentioned that Berklee College of Music might be worth looking into. Maya fell in love with the college, and after attending Berklee’s Summer Songwriting Workshop in 2018, she set her sights on attending.

 

In December 2018, just one week after auditioning in Boston, Maya received an emailed acceptance letter from Berklee during english class. She promptly stood up, stated “I have to go,” and left the classroom to call her moms with the news.

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Summer 2019 was a big oner for Maya. She was awarded the Kennedy Center’s VSA International Soloists Award, an award presented annually to talented young musicians with disabilities. The award was presented by The First Lady of The United States and honored Maya’s courage as a performing artist who speaks openly about her experiences with Tourette Syndrome.

 

After performing at The Kennedy Center and receiving her award, Maya was off to perform at ArtsQuest’s Musikfest, where she and her all-female band played two back-to-back Friday sets in the heart of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She’s since played the festival twice more.

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After an extraordinary Summer, it was off to Berklee, where Maya began her formal music production studies. Apart from studying, Maya recorded and co-produced her debut single, “Sink In,” a song which speaking out about a negative experience she had with substances. Her music continued to gain support, and she released her debut EP, “Closeted,” a collection of songs about her romantic journey as a queer person, during Pride Month in 2021.

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During her time at Berklee, Maya also began posting electronic performance videos, and music production tutorials of her own. After being noticed on social media by start-up electronic instrument company Artiphon, Maya joined their team as a sound designer and synthesist while continuing her studies.

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Maya also began producing for other artists during school. She produced MØNA’s 2022 EP, written in the stars, along with Emily Horton’s debut collection, when it gets dizzy. She also directed and edited a handful music videos during her time at the college.

Maya completed her undergraduate studies in three years, rather than four, leaving her a graduate at 21 years old with a degree in Electronic Production and Design.

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Maya would graduate as a three-time awardee of Berklee’s Songs for Social Change Award in recognition of her writing about mental illness and LGBTQ experiences, making her an awardee every year she was eligible.

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“Social change” is a phrase that fits Maya’s music well, with her most-streamed track, “I Miss Her Body,” being a powerful ballad expressing the cognitive dissonance that continues to linger during her battle recovering from an eating disorder.

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Working full-time developing and marketing electronic instruments at Artiphon, actively creating social media content for her 50,000 (and growing) social media followers, releasing music, and producing for fellow powerful independent non-male artists, Maya currently resides in New York City, and she doesn't plan to slow down any time soon.

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