Amir Siraj

Seventeen-year-old American pianist Amir Siraj is a 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a Lang Lang International Music Foundation Young Scholar. In the past year, he has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, the Atlantic Council Awards in New York, the New World Center in Miami, JBLFest in Las Vegas, and Carnegie Hall. Siraj has been guest soloist with orchestras including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, the Metrowest Symphony Orchestra, and the Midwest Young Artists Symphony Orchestra. He received the Grand Prize at the Fidelity Investments Young Artist Competition, First Prize at the Harvard Musical Association, and Second Prize at the Kaufman International Youth Piano Competition. Siraj has also been honored as a guest of NPR’s “From The Top” at Jordan Hall and selected as a winner of the National YoungArts Competition. In addition, he has performed for luminaries such as His Excellency Moon Jae-In, president of South Korea, and The Right Honourable Justin P. J. Trudeau, prime minister of Canada. Siraj has appeared at venues including Boston’s Symphony Hall, Bowdoin International Music Festival, American Liszt Society, and the Max Reger Foundation of America, among many others. He will be making his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in March 2018.

Siraj believes in the power of music and channeling it for social good and healing. He has performed in and directed many benefit concerts and outreach programs for Music For Food, Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Goddard House, NewBridge on the Charles, Golda Meir House, and Golden Living Center. He also performed as part of Christopher O’Riley’s new piece “This Land/Our Land” with other young musicians with immigrant stories.

Siraj recently recorded with Lang Lang on Deutsche Grammophon. He is currently studying astrophysics at Harvard, where he also sings with the Krokodiloes, Harvard’s oldest a cappella group.