Finalist: Tamila Azadaliyeva

Tamila Azadaliyeva was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she received her B.M. degree from Tashkent State Conservatory. She came to the United States in 2000 to study with Oxana Yablonskaya at the University of Hartford Hartt School, where she received her Graduate Professional Diploma in 2003 and then her Masters degree the following year, while studying with Luiz de Moura Castro.

Tamila has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Italy, Spain, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. She has been guest soloist with several orchestras including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. In 2005 she studied and performed in the Amalfi Music Festival in Italy and the International Piano Forum in Barcelona, Spain. In the US she has played solo recitals sponsored by the Musical Club of Hartford and Connecticut State Music Teachers Association. As a chamber musician she has performed in the Green Lake Chamber Music Festival in Wisconsin, the New Canaan Library, Avon Library and the Greater Waterbury Classic concert series in Connecticut with the Arensky Piano Trio, Artemis Trio, and with Anatoly Bazhenov, the first violinist of the celebrated Lysenko Quartet.

Among her many awards are Gold Prize in the 2005 Connecticut State Young Artists' Piano Competition; Third Prize in the 2006 and 2008 International New England Chamber Music Competition in Boston, Massachusetts (with Arensky Piano Trio); the Special Prize in the 2005 International Piano Forum's four-hand Piano Competition in Barcelona, Spain (with Jonathan Moyer); and a Finalist's Diploma in the 2002 International Competition in Bologna, Italy. Tamila also is the recipient of the Elizabeth H. Walden Memorial Music Scholarship and the Evelyn Bonar Storrs Scholarship from the Musical Club of Hartford.

Tamila currently studies with Margarita Nuller.

Tamila teaches piano at the University of Hartford Hartt Community Division in Hartford, Connecticut.