BIOGRAPHY
"Aïda Lahlou is a pianist of imagination and poetry, not shy of exploring sonority, colour, or inner voicings."
Ates Orga, Classical Source
Born in Casablanca, Aïda started the piano aged 5 with Yana Kaminska, winning her first international competition 3 years later. In Morocco she received training from several teachers, including Nicole Salmon-Boyer from the École Normale Alfred Cortot. At the age of 15, she was offered a place at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey where she was able to study thanks to a scholarship from the U.K. government (Music and Dance Scheme) and a scholarship from the school itself. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Double First in Music, and from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a Distinction in Piano Performance (MPerf) where she studied in the class of Ronan O’Hora and Peter Bithell.
Aïda has been concertising internationally since her teens, with a concert portfolio spanning from Morocco to Azerbaijan, in halls such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Hall of Organ and Chamber Music in Baku, the Royal Overseas League in Edinburgh, St John's Church in Wimbledon, BOZAR in Brussels, Robert Samut Hall in Valetta, Centro Cultural San Carlos in Ibiza, Théâtre National Mohamed V in Rabat and Théâtre 121 in Casablanca, and more.
Highlights include being invited as soloist for a three-date tour of Morocco with the Orchestre Symphonique Royal (dir. Oleg Reshetkin), thus becoming the youngest piano soloist to have performed with this orchestra at the age of 20, performing alongside Vadim Repin, Roby Lakatos, Gilles Appap, Valeriy Sokolov, Volker Biesenbender and others in a packed Salle Henri Leboeuf in Brussels at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin’s birth, playing continuo on the harpsichord in Bach’s double violin concerto with YMS alumni Alina Ibragimova and Nicola Benedetti, performing Rachmaninoff’s Trio Élégiaque No. 1 at Wigmore Hall to great acclaim by audience and critics, and playing in the Calais jungle for an audience entirely made up of refugees and volunteers.
Throughout her career, Aïda received multiple scholarships, and over 20 awards from national and international competitions, most recently the Philip Crawshaw award at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London. She has participated in masterclasses in the U.K., Belgium, France, Malta, and Austria, with musicians of international renown such as Roberte Mamou, Boris Berman, Lev Natochenny, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Pavel Gililov, Edith Fischer, John Rink and Robert Levin.
Aside from her pianistic activities, Aïda volunteers with Fossil Free London (environmental activist group) and has stage-directed four operas. She has conceived and performed an award-winning one-woman show mixing stand-up comedy and the classical piano recital format, which premièred at the Bloomsbury Festival in October 2023 and has since also been performed at the Printemps Musical des Alizés in French. Aïda also enjoys teaching and workshopping students on the topics of performance, communication, and artistic practice.
"Aïda Lahlou is a pianist of imagination and poetry, not shy of exploring sonority, colour, or inner voicings."
Ates Orga, Classical Source
Born in Casablanca, Aïda started the piano aged 5 with Yana Kaminska, winning her first international competition 3 years later. In Morocco she received training from several teachers, including Nicole Salmon-Boyer from the École Normale Alfred Cortot. At the age of 15, she was offered a place at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey where she was able to study thanks to a scholarship from the U.K. government (Music and Dance Scheme) and a scholarship from the school itself. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Double First in Music, and from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a Distinction in Piano Performance (MPerf) where she studied in the class of Ronan O’Hora and Peter Bithell.
Aïda has been concertising internationally since her teens, with a concert portfolio spanning from Morocco to Azerbaijan, in halls such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Hall of Organ and Chamber Music in Baku, the Royal Overseas League in Edinburgh, St John's Church in Wimbledon, BOZAR in Brussels, Robert Samut Hall in Valetta, Centro Cultural San Carlos in Ibiza, Théâtre National Mohamed V in Rabat and Théâtre 121 in Casablanca, and more.
Highlights include being invited as soloist for a three-date tour of Morocco with the Orchestre Symphonique Royal (dir. Oleg Reshetkin), thus becoming the youngest piano soloist to have performed with this orchestra at the age of 20, performing alongside Vadim Repin, Roby Lakatos, Gilles Appap, Valeriy Sokolov, Volker Biesenbender and others in a packed Salle Henri Leboeuf in Brussels at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin’s birth, playing continuo on the harpsichord in Bach’s double violin concerto with YMS alumni Alina Ibragimova and Nicola Benedetti, performing Rachmaninoff’s Trio Élégiaque No. 1 at Wigmore Hall to great acclaim by audience and critics, and playing in the Calais jungle for an audience entirely made up of refugees and volunteers.
Throughout her career, Aïda received multiple scholarships, and over 20 awards from national and international competitions, most recently the Philip Crawshaw award at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London. She has participated in masterclasses in the U.K., Belgium, France, Malta, and Austria, with musicians of international renown such as Roberte Mamou, Boris Berman, Lev Natochenny, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Pavel Gililov, Edith Fischer, John Rink and Robert Levin.
Aside from her pianistic activities, Aïda volunteers with Fossil Free London (environmental activist group) and has stage-directed four operas. She has conceived and performed an award-winning one-woman show mixing stand-up comedy and the classical piano recital format, which premièred at the Bloomsbury Festival in October 2023 and has since also been performed at the Printemps Musical des Alizés in French. Aïda also enjoys teaching and workshopping students on the topics of performance, communication, and artistic practice.