Maksim Mrvica is a popular pianist from Croatia. Mrvica was born in Å ibenik, a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia. He started taking up piano lessons at the age of nine from Marija Sekso and gave his first public performance in the same year.

Just three years later he gave his first concert performance of Haydn’s Piano Concerto in C major. When war broke out in 1990, both Mrvica and his professor were determined that this would not disrupt his music studies. In spite of the war and surrounding turbulence, Mrvica entered in, and won, his first major competition in Zagreb in 1993.