Biography

Orli Shaham received her first scholarship for musical study from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation at age five to study with Luisa Yoffe at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. By age seven, she traveled to New York with her family to begin study with Nancy Stessin, and became a scholarship student of Herbert Stessin at the Juilliard School a year later. She won the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. Shaham also holds a degree in history from Columbia University.

Ms. Shaham’s 2014-15 season is highlighted by the release of a new CD, Brahms Inspired, which includes music by Brahms and Chopin, along with new works by Brett Dean, Avner Dorman, and Bruce Adolphe. Other highlights of the season include appearances at the Aspen Music Festival, Arizona Musicfest, and the Chicago Symphony “Presents” series, as well as concerto performances with the Orchestre National de France in Paris, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. In addition, Ms. Shaham serves as the Artistic Director for the Pacific Symphony’s chamber music series in Costa Mesa, California, and for the interactive children's concert series, Baby Got Bach, which she founded in 2010. 

In 2014, Orli Shaham released American Grace, a CD of piano music by John Adams and Steven Mackey including the premiere recording of Mackey’s Stumble to Grace (written especially for Ms. Shaham) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and David Robertson conducting. In 2013, Ms. Shaham and her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham released the album Nigunim: Hebrew Melodies, which features a newly commissioned work by Avner Dorman. She and her brother have also collaborated on several additional recordings including Dvořák for Two on Deutsche Grammophon, an all-Prokofiev disc, and Mozart in Paris.

Orli Shaham lives in New York and Saint Louis with her husband, conductor David Robertson, stepsons Peter and Jonathan, and twin sons Nathan and Alex. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2003 as a Shenson Young Artist.

(January 2015)