Maria Goudimov was born in 1983 in Moscow in a musical family. At the age of five she began playing the piano and attended the "Music school for gifted children" named after Gnesin in Moscow.
She moved to Germany with her parents when she was six. In 1992 she began taking harp lessons from her mother, who is the principal harpist of the Hamburg Philharmonic. Since 1993, Maria has been active in competitions with the following results:
- 1993: 1st prize at a local competition
- 1996 and 2001: 1st prize at the "Competition for young musicians of Hamburg"
- 1999 and 2002: 1st prize at the Germany-wide "Jugend musiziert"-competition
- 2001: 3rd prize at the "Koester Classic Competition for all instruments"
- 2002: 6th prize at the "Second International Vera Dulova Harp Competition"
- 2005: 1st prize at the 3rd International Harp Competition in Moscow
Maria Goudimov has been a performing member of the Yehudi Menuhin "live music now" foundation since 2001. In 2002 she performed at the "Focus on Youth" concert at the World Harp Congress in Geneva. The year 2002-03 she studied at the Hochschule fuer Musik und Theater Hamburg in the Young Talent class with Xavier de Maistre. She graduated from the "Christianeum" high school and took part in the Interlochen Orchestra Academy with a full scholarship in summer of 2003. A scholarship of the "Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" granted her a year at the Indiana University School of Music (2003 - 2004).
At present Maria Goudimov is a student at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht in the class of the renowned professor Erika Waardenburg.