ABOUT

Afamia Al-Dayaa is a composer, pianist, writer, and artistic researcher. Her work spans contemporary music, piano performance, literary writing, and artistic research.

As a composer, she writes instrumental, vocal, and electronic music, with a particular interest in contemporary sound, timbre, microtonality, and new approaches to music performance. Her compositions have been performed in Austria and internationally, including at Wien Modern, Imago Dei, Alte Schmiede Musikwerkstatt Vienna, Tutte Le Corde Piano Festival in New York, and the Transparent Sound New Music Festival in Budapest. Her work has been recognised through several awards and commissions, including the J. Haydn Chamber Music and Composition Competition and a composition commission from the State of Lower Austria for the Imago Dei Festival.

As a pianist, she focuses on the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries and on contemporary approaches to piano performance. Her musical education began at the Hochschule für Musik Trossingen and continued at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She completed postgraduate studies in piano, Lied, and chamber music repertoire in Vienna and, in 2026, an Advanced Certificate in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at New York University, where she also worked as adjunct faculty in piano.

Writing forms a further, independent part of her artistic work. She studied Literary Writing at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and received the Buchprämie of the City of Vienna in 2018. Her literary work has been published by Residenz Verlag.

Her research interests include composition, microtonality, improvisation, translation, intermediality and questions surrounding contemporary practice. She has published on n-EDO systems, intermedial elements, the Kirnberger well-temperament, and works with live electronics and digital sound environments using Max/MSP and Pure Data.

Al-Dayaa studied instrumental composition and media composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she completed two Master's degrees. Since autumn 2026, she is pursuing an artistic doctorate at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz.