Aliyah Ramatally
Key Music Relay Leader for Trinidad and Tobago
Aliyah Ramatally
Trinidad and Tobago
Aliyah Ramatally is a Trinidadian composer and researcher, currently based in London. She is a graduate of Durham University having completed her Bachelor of Arts in Music in 2022, and more recently, here Master of Arts with Distinction in Music & Science.
As an emerging composer, Aliyah is currently exploring her compositional interests, experimenting with sounds and instrumentation that complement her storytelling compositional style. She was the recipient of the Audience Vote Award for the Commonwealth International Composition Award (CICA) in 2020 for her piece Mundo Nuevo- New World, featuring instrumentation of flute, steelpan, trombone, viola, and djembe. On completing her Bachelor of Arts with specialism in composition, Aliyah receiving distinction in her portfolio Iere, which featured four works highlighting concepts of colonization, flora and fauna, folklore and carnival celebrations of Trinidad and Tobago. Aliyah has had her musical works premiered and workshopped in New York (2021), Italy (2022), Cardiff (2023) and in the UK.
Aliyah’s interests verge beyond composition having pursued her Master of Arts in Music & Science. With a strong background in science, Aliyah developed an interest in mental health within the music community. In 2021, Aliyah’s seminal research paper ‘Imposter Syndrome and Musicality’ was published in Volume 4 of the Durham Undergraduate Research in Music and Science (DURMS) online journal. In her postgraduate studies, Aliyah focused her research on music performance anxiety and obtained a distinction for implementing a revised replication study on the effects of expressive writing intervention on pianists.
Over the past year, Aliyah has challenged herself in roles of leadership and event planning within her university communities. She recently received from St Chad’s College, Durham University the Unsung Hero Award for her service as Vice President to the Middle Common Room. Aliyah was as a member of many of Durham University’s Music Department committees, including the Music & Science Lab, the MUSICON concert series, and the department’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) Committee. In Aliyah’s service to the EDI committee, she had the opportunity to be the lead coordinator for the International Women’s Day Concert 2023. She received high praise from the department for her contribution and was interviewed on her experience in organizing the event.