Halleli Smoly

israel

Halleli Smoly

Halleli Smoly, 16 years old, born in Israel, has been playing the piano since the age of 6. She studies at the Kfar-Saba Conservatory under the devoted guidance of her piano teacher, Mrs. Adela Umansky. At the age of 11, Halleli was recognized as a gifted young musician by the
Program of Cultivating Gifted and Outstanding Music Students of the Israeli Ministry of Education. She has been a grant recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship with outstanding honors since she was 11 years old. In addition, she was awarded excellence
scholarships by the Zefonot Culture Foundation promoting gifted young musicians. Halleli was the 1st Absolute Winner of the Orbetello International Piano Competition, Italy 2023,
at the age of 14. The judges awarded her a perfect score of 100 out of 100 points. She was also the 1st prize winner of the Pnina Salzman Israel National Piano Competition for the same year. Moreover, she won 1st prizes in the Golden Key Piano Competition (Tel Aviv, Israel) at the age of 7, and in the Competitions of the Piano Department of The Kfar Saba Conservatory (Kfar
Saba, Israel) at the ages of 13 and 15.
In the summer of 2023, Halleli was chosen to play Beethoven’s Concerto No. 2 as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Philharmonic’s Key Program. The concert took place in January 2024, on the stage of the Charles Bronfman Cultural Hall in Tel Aviv to the
applause of the audience.
Since she was 10 years old, Halleli has been taking part in the Jerusalem Music Center’s (JMC)
Outstanding Young Pianists Program, led by the great pianist Maestro Murray Perahia, where
she participates in a variety of musical activities. These include masterclasses with maestro
Perahia and other leading pianists from around the world, practical and theoretical lessons, intensive courses and performance opportunities, and instruction in chamber music playing.
When she was 15, Halleli was honored to be invited by the JMC to play the Dvořák Quintet for Piano and Strings with the Israel Philharmonic Strings players in a live concert in the beautiful JMC hall.
In December 2024, the Stefano Strata Academy of Music in Pisa Italy, awarded Halleli a scholarship for the best performance at the final concert of Professor Yossi Reshef’s piano
master class, for her performance “with melodic clarity and power of mature feeling”, that captivated the jury. In January 2025, Halleli performed a recital on the stage of the Teatro Verdi di Pisa in the award concert that the Academy granted her.
Halleli has participated also in the Master Classes programs of the Edward Aldwell Institute, in
Jerusalem and in the well-known Tel Hai International Piano Master Classes festival, since she
was 12. Over the years, she participated in master classes with many leading musicians from
Israel and from around the world, including Maestro Murray Perahia, Victor Rosenbaum, Boris
Berman, Gerlinde Otto, Pavlina Dokovska, Massimiliano Ferrati, Ilya Shmukler, Claudius Tanski,
Ilya Friedberg, Emanuel Krasovsky, Asaf Zohar, Yossi Reshef and Lea Agmon.