Orli Shaham

Orli Shaham (אוֹרלי שחם; born 5 November 1975) is an American pianist, born in Jerusalem, Israel, the daughter of scientists Meira Shaham (Diskin) and Jacob Shaham.

Her brothers are the violinist Gil Shaham and Shai Shaham, who is the head of the Laboratory of Developmental Genetics at Rockefeller University.

She is a graduate of the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, and of Columbia University.

She also studied at the Juilliard School, beginning in its Pre-college Division and continuing while a student at Columbia.

Orli Shaham performs recitals and appears with major orchestras throughout the world.

She was awarded the Gilmore Young Artist Award in 1995 and the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1997.

Her appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit and Atlanta Symphonies, Orchestre National de Lyon, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Orchestra of La Scala (Milan), Orchestra della Toscana (Florence), and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2003, Shaham married David Robertson, then Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and became stepmother to his sons, Peter and Jonathan.

Shaham and Robertson are the parents of twin sons Nathan Glenn and Alex Jacob, born in 2007 in New York City.

In November 2008, she began her tenure as artistic advisor to the Pacific Symphony and curator of their "Cafe Ludwig" chamber music series.

She also served as the host of America’s Music Festivals in 2012 and 2013, and from 2005-2008 she was host of Classical Public Radio Network’s "Dial-a-Musician" in which she called expert colleagues to answer listener questions.

For this program, she interviewed more than forty artists, including John Adams, Emanuel Ax, Natalie Dessay, Christine Brewer, Colin Currie, and others.

In 2020, Orli Shaham was named as Regular Guest Host and Creative for NPR’s “From the Top”, the nationally broadcast radio program featuring performances and conversations with teenage musicians.