Biography

Classical pianist Aliya Alsafa has been praised for her artistry and musical sensitivity. A Young Steinway Artist and a YoungArts Winner, she first drew international attention as a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, personally chosen by Lang Lang. She has since performed across the United States and Europe and earned top prizes in local, national, and international competitions.

Aliya has appeared on many distinguished stages, among them Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, Ravinia's Bennett-Gordon Hall, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, Merkin Hall, the Harris Theater, Benaroya Hall, Steinway Hall, Paul Hall, and Stanford's Bing Concert Hall. She was the youngest pianist to perform at Orchestra Hall in Chicago's Symphony Center, for the “Keys to the City” festival hosted by Emanuel Ax, and she served for a year as an orchestral pianist with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra.

As a Lang Lang Foundation Young Scholar, Aliya has performed at leading international festivals, including the Andermatt Swiss Alps Classics in Switzerland, the Aspen Music Festival, the Gilmore Rising Star Series and Gilmore Keyboard Festival, and the Leeds International Piano Festival in Leeds and London. Her involvement with the foundation began in 2013, when she was one of only twelve pianists worldwide chosen for the inaugural Allianz Junior Music Camp in Munich. She was later named a Young Scholar for the 2018–2020 term and remains an alumna of the program. Her ties to the foundation have continued into recent seasons, when she appeared as a featured artist at its Apulian Runway Experience in Puglia, Italy. Independently, she has taken part in the Holland Music Sessions in the Netherlands and, in 2025, attended the Honeywell Arts Academy as a Soundboard piano scholar. She is also an Artemisia Akademie Fellow.

Aliya's competition record spans more than a decade. In her early years, she won First Prizes in the primary division of the Emilio Del Rosario Concerto Competition and the Walgreens National Concerto Early Music Division, and took Second Prize nationally at the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) competition for composition. In high school, she won First Prize at the Chopin Youth Piano Competition and the Sejong Music Competition, and was a medalist and category winner of the “Best Chopin Etude” at the 2017 Seattle International Piano Competition. As the youngest contestant at the MostArts Festival, she received the Audience Favorite Prize, appearing as soloist with orchestra. More recently, she was a winner at the Palo Alto Philharmonic Concerto Competition and the Berkeley Piano Competition, where she received the Marliave Prize.

Aliya chose to attend Stanford University, where music has remained central to her life. There she co-founded the Stanford Piano Society and the Stanford Keyboard Studies Committee, the university's first piano-focused student organizations, giving fellow pianists a stronger voice within the piano department. In 2026 she was awarded the Music Department's Blew-Culley-LaFollette Prize for piano performance, and that spring she presented an all-Ravel senior recital in Campbell Recital Hall. She has also served as orchestral pianist for the Stanford Philharmonia.

Aliya currently studies with Sandra Wright Shen, having previously worked with Louise Costigan-Kerns. At the Juilliard Pre-College, she first studied with Matti Raekallio before joining the studio of Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone. Her early teachers in Chicago included Mary Sauer, Sueanne Metz, and Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem, and she studied composition there with Matt Hagle. She has taken masterclasses with artists including Lang Lang, Mikhail Voskresensky, Michelle Cann, Jon Nakamatsu, and Antonio Pompa-Baldi.

Aliya recently completed a bachelor's degree in computer science at Stanford, with a minor in music, and now continues her studies there at the graduate level. Throughout her career she has also devoted herself to community service, performing at school outreach concerts, retirement homes, and fundraising events. Her other interests include dance and composition.