Ahmed Alom is a Cuban-born pianist, composer, and conductor. Praised as “one of the most versatile artists in the Western Hemisphere” (Diario de Mallorca), Alom is drawn to repertoire that reframes tradition through transcription, improvisation and collaboration.
As a composer, his music has been performed by artists and ensembles including Yuja Wang, who premiered Alom’s Displaced Étude No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic, alongside Caleb Hudson, Tessa Lark, Pedrito Martinez, and Triple Cortado. His artistic partnerships span classical and jazz worlds, with collaborators including Yuja Wang, Teddy Abrams, Michael League, Antonio Sánchez, Steve Hackman, Lau Noah, Eliades Ochoa, and Pedrito Martinez.
Highlights of recent and upcoming seasons include music directing a series of concerts by Yuja Wang & People of Earth, culminating in the world premiere of Alom’s new Piano Concerto in July 2026, with performances in Aspen, Vail, Caramoor, and Sun Valley. In 2025, he debuted at Carnegie Hall as pianist and arranger, curating the music of Lau Noah for Ensemble Connect and Nick Kendall. He has appeared in performances across the United States, Panama, The Bahamas, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Cuba, and has been featured as a guest artist with organizations including the Cleveland Chamber Music Society and as a jury at the Santander National Piano Competition in Colombia.
Alom has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Orquesta Filarmónica de México, Britt Festival Orchestra, the Havana Chamber Orchestra, and Spain’s Academia 1830 Chamber Orchestra.
A committed advocate for inventive, inclusive programming, Alom is the youngest Artistic Director and Conductor of the Washington Square Music Festival (founded 1953), where he curates projects that foreground Latin American music alongside reimagined classics and new commissions. His recent conducting work includes programs featuring his own arrangements of Lau Noah’s music for chamber orchestra, as well as repertoire by de Falla and Vivaldi.
Alom’s debut studio album, Exilio (Irreverence Group Music, 2023), traces musical lives shaped by displacement, including the first complete recording of Luis A. Calvo’s Four Intermezzos. His chamber collaborations include Triple Cortado, with trumpeter Caleb Hudson and trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos, whose debut album, to be released in 2026, features Bach, Mendelssohn, and Alom’s cycle Hermann’s Reverie. Their work at the Moab Chamber Music Festival was featured on the cover of The New York Times festival-season coverage. He also co-founded CrossCurrents with Pedrito Martinez, exploring intersections between European concert tradition and Afro-Cuban rhythmic practice, debuting at the Nashville Symphony Center (2024). With the Pedrito Martinez Group, he has appeared at major jazz festivals including Montreal, Newport, Rochester, Cape May, and Riviera Maya, as well as Panamá Jazz Fest and performances presented by Jon Batiste.
Deeply engaged with contemporary creation, Alom collaborates regularly with composer/arranger Steve Hackman, appearing in studio projects and premieres including The Brink I & II, And I Love Her, Igor DAMN Stravinsky, and Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue with leading U.S. orchestras. He premiered Dafnis Prieto’s Tentación, written for People of Earth and commissioned by New Music USA and Teddy Abrams. His recorded credits also include releases with Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet, Samuel Torres Latin Chamber Ensemble, PanAmerican Symphony Orchestra and the original score recording of Peter Salem’s Doña Perón, commissioned by Ballet Hispánico.
Alom has given masterclasses and lectures for institutions including Berklee College of Music, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and universities and conservatories such as Juilliard, Curtis, Yale, Penn, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Dartmouth, and Peabody. He trained in Cuba in both percussion and piano, later earning his B.M. in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Solomon Mikowsky as a scholarship student of the Viola B. Marcus and Flavio Varani Foundations. He received coaching from Sylvia Rosenberg, Richard Goode, Robert Levin, and Kirill Gerstein, and he currently studies conducting, counterpoint, and composition with Ford Lallerstedt.