Biography

Leyla Kabuli is a first-year student at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies piano with Yoshikazu Nagai of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and was a scholarship student in the pre-college division of SFCM for seven years. She has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2015 and is a recent winner of the Youth Orchestra’s Concerto Competition.

Ms. Kabuli has been recognized with the National YoungArts Honorable Mention Award in both 2016 and 2017, and the 2016-17 US Chopin Foundation scholarship. She won first prizes in the Los Angeles Young Musician, eMuse, American Protégé, and Wildflower Music Showcase international competitions, and she has also received prizes in the ENKOR Competition, Virginia Waring Concerto Competition, and the Seattle International Piano Competition.

Following her performance on NPR’s From the Top in 2016, she collaborated on a benefit video to raise awareness for refugees, and was invited to perform at From the Top’s 2017 Gala. In 2015, she performed with Ensemble SF, and was a soloist with the Waring Festival Orchestra. She was featured in San Francisco’s Noontime Concerts as the Helen von Ammon Emerging Artist Award recipient in 2016. As winner of their Young Artist Concerto competitions, she performed with Nova Vista Symphony, Palo Alto Philharmonic, and El Camino Symphony, and was also the Young Artist Award soloist in two concerts with the Sonoma County Philharmonic in 2017.

Ms. Kabuli has attended many masterclasses and summer programs at Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Southeastern Piano Festival, IIYM, and Colburn Academy. She is an active chamber musician and collaborative pianist, and also plays the bassoon and violin. 

(November 2017)