At age 2, Aaliya’s parents enrolled her in music immersion classes at Philomusica, a music education center in Fort Collins, CO. Very soon, the school’s teachers noticed Aaliya’s uncommon propensities toward music, and by age 4, Aaliya was enrolled in piano lessons. Over the coming years, Aaliya worked with a number of teachers including Nicolette Bischof, Dr. Miroslava Mintcheva, Dr. David McArthur, Dr. Caleb Harris, and Vergie Amendola. By the end of high school, Aaliya had established herself as one of the leading student musicians in Fort Collins, had amassed a significant list of awards and symphonic engagements—including with the Colorado Symphony—and had produced and directed multiple benefit concerts which ultimately raised a combined ~$7000 for various charities at home and abroad.

At the beginning of the 3rd grade, Aaliya was enrolled in Centennial Children’s Chorus. The following >11 years of continuous involvement with the organization as a chorister, then graduate assistant, then pianist with incredible education provided by Sheri McKelfresh and Peggy Rosenkranz would have a deeply profound impact on Aaliya’s musical development and style.

However, co-existent with this enriching musical and artistic environment lay an intensely religious and conservative upbringing. Homeschooled through high school and repeatedly moved from church to church searching for one that was conservative enough for her father’s ideologies, Aaliya’s childhood left no room for expression or exploration. The two outlets that Aaliya discovered—the sounds of nature and the serenity of music—became sanctuaries that persist to the current day. In middle school, as the confusing period of puberty began, she discovered her improvisational voice. One night, home alone, Aaliya sat at the household cherry-wood Boston upright and just began to play: what she had not been given the words to speak, her music began to convey. For years after that time, Aaliya received variations on the same comment: “Your technique may have room for development, but your expression is years beyond your age.” A part of her that would not be silenced had found its voice.

Aaliya’s first extended period away from home was during her undergraduate career at Baylor University pursuing a Bachelor’s in Piano Performance. Although Aaliya’s personal and social life faced many of the hardships expected of a closeted trans woman recently escaped from a homeschooled upbringing, her musical studies primarily with piano teacher Jane Abbott-Kirk and choral director Dr. Lynne Gackle continued to develop her style and artistic vision. Her competitive pursuits provided her with professional collaborative pianist opportunities all throughout Texas, ultimately leading to a debut at Carnegie Hall at the end of her Senior Year.

After Baylor in 2019, Aaliya moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Master’s of Music in Collaborative Piano at the University of Southern California (USC). Studying with Dr. Alan Smith, Aaliya added a background in linguistics and a depth of understanding of operatic and classical song to her proverbial toolbox. By the end of her time there, despite the onset of Covid, she had worked in depth with both the choir and opera departments and had graduated with multiple honors including the singular “Keyboard Collaborative Arts Department Award and Ensemble Award”.

During the Covid era, Aaliya briefly returned to her production work, developing a system for remote simultaneous recording a mere three months after the shutdown and producing a daily streaming series during Summer 2020 that featured guests from all over the nation as well as a holiday special that December.

Within months of graduation, Aaliya was offered a faculty position coaching for the opera department at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). After a year, Aaliya was managing the scheduling and operations of the department while coaching almost every show the department produced. During this time, Aaliya also was brought in as a guest coach at USC, CSU Fullerton, and CSU Long Beach, and worked with many organizations across Southern California including Lyric Opera of Orange County, Opera Buffs, New Opera West, the Adoro Ensemble, Baroque Collegium LA, and even one engagement with the LA Phil. In 2024, Aaliya also joined a friend and colleague, Nathan Fratzke, to co-produce a multi-genre spiritually-oriented professional musical event with live band, choir, and vocal soloists called “Surrender”.

Then, in summer of 2024, Aaliya came to a devastating realization: with a prestigious academic position, frequent engagements as a coach and music director, and a unique live event on the horizon, she had achieved her childhood dreams… but was deeply unfulfilled. At the end of that year, Aaliya completely walked away from the classical and academic fields that she had pursued as a “path of least resistance” for almost a decade. Shortly thereafter, she also had her “eggshell” moment of discovering her true gender identity. The next two years were a time of intense change: shedding her old self and exploring her true passions. Unsurprisingly, in the midst of this process, her music returned. What started as an abstract playlist turned into her first original song in years, then another, then a whole album’s worth. And what started as a concept album turned into the full-scale recording project, “Finding My Light,” that currently occupies her focus.

It feels odd at times to lay my life’s story bare on a webpage, but I hope both through my story and my music to inspire others to discover those parts of themselves that lay far too long in darkness. “The world awaits with bated breath to see you truly be, so don’t hide your light, open your eyes, come see and be truly seen.”