Maria Gnesina was a Russian pianist and music teacher, one of the Gnesin sisters. She was born on 13 July 1874 in Rostov-on-Don, in the Russian Empire, into the family of Fabian Gnesin, the state rabbi of the city, and Bella Fleitzinger-Gnesina, a singer and pupil of Stanislaw Moniuszko. Her parents were married on 15 July 1863 in Vilnius.
In 1895 she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied piano under N. E. Shishkin. In the same year, together with her sisters Elena and Evgenia, she founded the Music School of the Sisters E. and M. Gnesin. She was one of the school's co-owners and taught piano there.
Gnesina died on 4 October 1918 in Moscow, in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. She was buried at Vagankovo Cemetery. A cenotaph in her memory was later placed on the monument to her sisters at Novodevichy Cemetery.