Kamilya Akhmetova
Kamilya Akhmetova was born in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. She started playing the piano when she was 7 in the Pavlodar music school (teacher Nataliya Yerissova). In 2010 she won third prize in the 44th Republican Festival-Competition of Young Musicians and was invited to the Republican kazakh specialized music school named after Akhmet Zhubanov in Almaty to continue her education (teacher Gulnara Zhakeyeva). At the age of 18 Kamilya made her debut with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Kazakhstan playing Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 in C minor. In 2014 she finished the school with honors and entered the Kazakh National University of Arts in Nur-Sultan (Astana) to study piano in the class of Professor Sara Assabayeva. There she also began elective organ lessons in the class of Assistant Professor Saltanat Abilkhanova.
In August 2015, during the 5th European Organ Academy Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany, she attended masterclasses of professors James David Christie (U.S.), Lorenzo Ghielmi (Italy) and Stefan Engels (Germany/U.S.). In 2016 she received a Diploma award in the Third Siberian International Chopin Piano Competition in Tomsk, Russia, and became a stipendiary of the First President Foundation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In her last year of study, she passed the selection of academic mobility program and for one semester studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory (Conservatorio di musica Benedetto Marcello Venezia), Venice, Italy (piano professors: Gabriele Vianello, Daniela Donaudi, Muriel Chemin; organ professor: Roberto Padoin). After earning her bachelor’s degree in piano performance with honors in 2018 she became a teacher at school and college at Kazakh National University of Arts.
Kamilya won a Diploma award at the 20th Open Festival-Competition of Organ Music Gatchina-St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg, Russia (2019) and at the Second International Competition for Young Composers and Organists “Baikal Toccata” in Irkutsk, Russia (2019). She currently is a master’s degree student at Southern Methodist University in the studio of Stefan Engels.