Orli Shaham

A consummate musician recognized for her grace, subtlety and brilliance, Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today’s most gifted pianists. Hailed by critics on four continents, Ms. Shaham is admired for her interpretations of both standard and modern repertoire. The New York Times called her a “brilliant pianist,” The Chicago Tribune referred to her as “a first – rate Mozartean” in a performance with the Chicago Symphony, and London’s Guardian said Ms. Shaham’s playing at the Proms was “perfection.”

Orli Shaham has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Nashville, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and Utah symphony orchestras; and internationally with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bilbao Symphony, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Stockholm Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Taiwan Philharmonic. A frequent guest at summer festivals, she has performed at Amelia Island, Aspen, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Bravo Vail, Caramoor, La Jolla, Mostly Mozart, Music Academy of the West, Music@Menlo, Orcas Island, Peninsula, Ravinia, Spoleto, Sun Valley, Tanglewood, and Verbier music festivals.

Ms. Shaham has given recitals in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia at renowned concert halls including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper , the Herkulessaal in Munich and City Recital Hall in Sydney, and has worked with many eminent conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Roger Norrington, Eric Jacobsen, Steven Sloane, Joshua Weilerstein, Christopher Hogwood, David Robertson, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Hans Vonk, Robert Spano, Jaap Van Zweden, Gerard Schwarz, Nicholas McGegan, Hans Graf and Jacques Lacombe among others. In performance, notable collaborations include the pianists Emanuel Ax, Joseph Kalichstein, Jon Kimura Parker and Marc-André Hamelin, the cellist Lynn Harrell, the violinists Gil Shaham (her brother) and Phillip Setzer, and the sopranos Christine Brewer and Michelle DeYoung.

A highlight of Ms. Shaham’s 2025-2026 concert season is the premiere of a concerto for violin and piano by Reena Esmail which Orli commissioned with her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham, with the National and Virginia symphonies and at the Aspen Music Festival. Other concerto appearances include performances with the National Taiwan Symphony , Nashville Symphony, Vancouver Symphony (Canada), Vancouver Symphony (USA) and more. Following their wildly successful recital tour in 2024-2025, she will once again join her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham, at Shriver Hall Concert Series in Baltimore. She has been Artistic Director for Pacific Symphony’s “Café Ludwig” chamber music series in Costa Mesa, California since 2007 where she is host and a featured performer for each of the concerts. In spring 2026, Shaham and musicians from the Pacific Symphony release an album of world premiere recordings by Avner Dorman, Sarah Snider, Viet Cuong, Margaret Brouwer and Reena Esmail, including works which were commissioned by Pacific Symphony.

Highlights in recent seasons include the world premiere of David Robert son’s Light forming with the Orlando Philharmonic and subsequent performances in Seattle and Nashville; Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? by John Adams with the Finnish Radio Symphony; Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto with the Pacific and Madison sympho nies; and festival appearances at Aspen, Tanglewood, Music@Menlo, Sun Valley, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Chautauqua and Bowdoin, Maine.

In 2024, Orli Shaham released the box set of her complete Mozart piano sonatas cycle, which was widely acclaimed, with World Music Report writing “Orli Shaham Serves Champagne, Fizz and Finesse,” and Take Effect Reviews hailing Shaham’s skills as “nothing short of awe inspiring.” Shaham’s Mozart project began in 2019 with the release on Canary Classics of piano concertos K.453 and K.491 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson conducting. “Orli Shaham and David Robertson are at – one interpretatively and the SLSO members are stylish and sympathetic confreres,” praised Colin Anderson of Classical Source who also selected the album as “The Editor’s Choice.” She has given a master class on the digital platform Tonebase centered around the Mozart sonatas, as well as a live online discussion and demonstration of the life and music of Clara Schumann.

In addition t o her Mozart recording project, Ms. Shaham’s discography includes her acclaimed album, “Brahms Inspired,” a 2 – CD set released in 2015 of new works by Brett Dean, Avner Dorman, and Bruce Adolphe alongside works of Brahms and his compositional forefathers. The New York Times praised Ms. Shaham’s “beautiful performances” on the recording, calling it “a treasurable album.” The St. Louis Post – Dispatch stated that the album “takes the listener on an intellectual as well as a musical journey” and cited Ms. Shaham’ s “musical intelligence and integrity.”

Ms. Shaham’s discography includes her performance of John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music with the pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the San Francisco Symphony, with the composer conducting, featured on the SFSO album “Absol ute Jest.” Arts Desk’s Graham Rickson raved, “Pianists Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin dazzle.” In 2014, Orli Shaham released “American Grace,” an album of piano music by John Adams and Steven Mackey featuring the recorded premiere of Mackey’s Stumble to Grace (written especially for Ms. Shaham) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, David Robertson conducting. Composer John Adams himself wrote of Ms. Shaham’s collaboration with Jon Kimura (Jackie) Parker on his two – piano work Hallelujah Junction, “any composer should be so lucky to receive such a reading as Orli and Jackie have done,” and Brian Wigman of Classical.net praised the album as having “nuance to the playing, and a sense of grace and poetry.” The previous year, Ms. Shaham released the CD “Nigunim – Hebrew Melodies ,” recorded with her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham. The album features showpieces by Ernest Bloch, Joseph Achron, and Leo Zeitlin as well as a newly commissioned work by Avner Dorman. She and Gil Shaham have collaborated on several additional recordings including “Dvorák for Two” on Deutsche Gramophone, an all – Prokofiev disc (“As fine a recording of the violin and piano music of Prokofiev as has ever been made by one of the finest violinist and pianist teams of the last ten years.” Barnes&Noble.com), and “Mozart in Paris” featuring Mozart’s Six Sonatas, Op. 1.

Founded in 2010, Orli Shaham’s interactive concert series for young children, ‘Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard’, is recognized by parents, media and the music community as a significant force in music education and entertainment for children age pre – K to early elementary and has been cited as “magical” and “a terrific family event” in the press. The series has been presented by Kaufman Music Center and 92nd Street Y in New York, Princeton University Concerts in New Jersey, the Aspen Music Festival, and Rochester Philharmonic, and in Los Angeles and St. Louis. In 2020, Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard and Kaufman Music Center collaborated to create a 10 – episode video series for young children created and hosted by Shaham.

In addition to her activities on stage, Ms. Shaham frequently gives master classes and has served on the jury of numerous piano competitions, including the Cliburn International, Honens International, New York International, Sydney International, and Virginia Waring International piano competitions. Committed to music education, Ms. Shaham is on the piano and chamber music faculty at The Juilliard School. She has taught music literature at Columbia University, contributed articles to Piano Today, Symphony, Musical America, Playbill, NPR ’s ‘Deceptive Cadence’ blog, and was artist in residence on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. In 2024, her wide – ranging career was recognized with an award from Musical America in which she was named one of the Top Professionals of the Year. Orli Shaham is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Kaufman Music Center, which includes Merkin Hall, Special Music School, and the Lucy Moses School, New York’s largest community music school.

Ms. Shaham maintains an active parallel career as a respected broadcaster, music writer and lecturer. She is Co-host and Creative for NPR’s “From the Top,” the nationally broadcast radio program featuring performances and conversations with talented teenage musicians since 2018. She served as the host of “America’s Music Festivals in 2012 and 2013, a radio program nationally broadcast to over one hundred stations. From 2005 – 2008 she created and hosted “Dial-a-Musician,” a radio series for The Classical Public Radio Network. Shaham’s concept of the program was to enhance listeners’ experiences of music and musicians by directing listeners’ questions about classical music to internationally renowned musicians, calling them on the phone to discuss the topic.

Orli Shaham was recognized early for her exceptional talents. She 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 Stess in, 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, two prestigious prizes given to further the development of outstanding talent. In addition to her musical education at the Juilliard School, Orli Shaham holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University and pursued a master’s degree in musicology from Columbia. Orli Shaham is married to conductor David Robertson, and has twin sons Nathan and Alex and stepsons Peter and Jonathan.

Orli Shaham is a Steinway Artist.