Cellist Elena Ariza is rapidly establishing herself as one of today’s most creative and community-driven cellists. An avid chamber musician, she has performed alongside luminaries such as Itzhak Perlman, Steve Tenenbom, Vivian Weilerstein, members of the Brentano and Cassatt string quartets, and attended festivals including Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, and the Perlman Music Program. She has had the privilege of performing for esteemed musicians such as Colin Carr, David Finckel, Clive Greensmith, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Paul Katz, Ralph Kirshbaum, Philippe Muller, and Marcy Rosen. She has been featured on Yo-Yo Ma’s Music Art Life project and on NPR’s From the Top.

Making her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 14, Elena has since performed on prestigious stages worldwide, including the Berliner Philharmonie Grand Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, The Royal Concertgebouw, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and Smetana Hall in Prague. Invited to the 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition, Elena won 1st prize at the 2025 William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition, the 2022 Gustav Mahler Prize Cello Competition, the 2022 Philharmonic Society of Arlington Young Artist Competition, and was a finalist in both the 2021 and 2019 Juilliard Concerto Competition.

A fierce advocate for the music of today, Elena has worked with and showcased compositions by Pulitzer Prizewinner Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and premiered works by Anne Qian Wang and Hiroya Miura. Passionate about community activism, she has organized fundraiser concerts for the 2011 Japanese tsunami, the 2021 Haitian earthquake, and for those affected in Ukraine. She has also partnered with Project: Music Heals Us to perform for and teach music in jail facilities in Santa Clara, Santa Clarita, Sonoma County, and on Riker’s Island.

Based in New York City, Elena is the 2025-27 season cellist for Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect program, a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School, and Teaching Assistant for Astrid Schween. She previously received her Artist Diploma at Juilliard and her Bachelor of Arts at Columbia University majoring in computer science, as part of the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange Program. Her teachers and mentors include Richard Aaron, Joel Krosnick, Ronald Leonard, Sieun Lin, Astrid Schween, and Eric Sung.