Under Mel Bush's management, Mrvica's performances generally take place against a backdrop of special lighting, stage and video effects. It was also in the number 1 slot in the HMV international pop chart in Hong Kong for twelve consecutive weeks. Since its release in 2003 it has been successful, in Asia, where it has achieved Gold status in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and mainland China, Platinum in Taiwan and Croatia and Double Platinum in Hong Kong. This album was The Piano Player, which gave a new spin to compositions by Handel and Chopin. EMI Classics was also interested in Mrvica and soon a new album was underway. Mrvica was spotted by Tonči Huljić, who composed several tracks for the crossover string quartet, Bond, and introduced Mrvica to British impresario Mel Bush. In 2000, he moved to Paris to study with Igor Lazko and gained first prize in the Pontoise Piano Competition in 2001.

He then spent a year at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and during this year he won first prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Piano Competition. Mrvica went on to study at the Music Academy in Zagreb where he spent five years under Professor Vladimir Krpan, who himself was a pupil of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In spite of the war and surrounding turbulence, Mrvica entered in, and won, his first major competition in Zagreb in 1993. When Serbian aggression started in 1991, both Mrvica and his professor were determined that this would not disrupt his music studies. Three years later he gave his first concert performance of Haydn's Piano Concerto in C major. He took piano lessons at the age of nine.

Maksim mrvica pure 2