Cellist Elena Ariza is recognized for her artistry, versatility, and commitment to community engagement. She has performed in distinguished venues including Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, Davies Symphony Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw, and Seiji Ozawa Hall. A participant in 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, and the 2022 Philharmonic Society of Arlington Young Artist Competition. She has been featured on Yo-Yo Ma’s Music Art Life project and on NPR’s From the Top.

Highlights of the 2025-26 season include a solo appearance with the Juilliard Orchestra performing Strauss’s Don Quixote at Alice Tully Hall under Nicholas Carter, collaboration with conductor Marin Alsop through Ensemble Connect’s Up Close concert at Carnegie Hall, artist residencies at Chamber Music Lehigh Valley, Marlboro Music, and Skidmore College, and performances for the “If Music Be the Food” benefit concert series.

An avid chamber musician, Elena has collaborated with artists such as Christopher O’Riley, Itzhak Perlman, Steven Tenenbom, Vivian Weilerstein, and members of the Brentano and Cassatt String Quartets. She has received masterclasses and coachings from Colin Carr, David Finckel, Clive Greensmith, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Joseph Kalichstein, Kim Kashkashian, Ralph Kirshbaum, Paul Katz, Hakuro Mori, Johannes Moser, Philippe Muller, Sangmin Park, Itzhak Perlman, Li-Wei Qin, Marcy Rosen, Roger Tapping, Alisa Weilerstein, Don Weilerstein, and the Borromeo, Emerson, Juilliard, Shanghai, and Brentano quartets. She has also appeared at festivals across North America including the Aspen Music Festival and School, Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Sunkiss’d Mozart, Tanglewood Music Center, Taos School of Music, Vivac-e!, and Yellow Barn.

A fierce advocate for the music of today, Elena has commissioned and premiered Anne Qian Wang’s The Cat That Lived a Million Lives, based on the children’s picture book of the same title. She has also given the world premiere of Hiroya Miura’s Lustral Shades, collaborating with esteemed musicians of the Japanese tradition in a quintet for hichiriki, sho, ryuteki, shamisen, and cello.

Dedicated to community activism, Elena has 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. She has also organized and performed fundraiser concerts for the 2011 Japanese tsunami, the 2021 Haitian earthquake, and for those affected in Ukraine.

Based in New York City, Elena is the 2025-27 cellist fellow for Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School, and Teaching Assistant to 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 mentors include Richard Aaron, Joel Krosnick, Ronald Leonard, Sieun Lin, Astrid Schween, and Eric Sung.