Aliya Ultan — the Nocturnal Cellist — is a composer-performer based in New York. Raised in motion, she turned to music as a survival instinct, and never stopped moving. Her cello becomes a voice of its own: orchestral and grungy, seductive and unhinged — a medium of myth, memory, and pure sensation.

As a musician, Aliya is found at the cross section of all things working with John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards, David Behrman a pioneer of electro-acoustic music, Aaron Dilloway of Wolf Eyes, and composer-performer Tyshawn Sorey to name a few. With both classical and jazz training, Aliya has been in high demand performing in all but a few of New York's finest venues including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Outdoors, BAM, Issue Project Room, National Sawdust, Roulette Intermedium, Birdland Jazz Club, Blue Note, Closeup, Ornithology as well as on Broadway in Hadestown working with Ani Defranco, Allison Russell, Ben Perowsky, Brian Drye, and Anaïs Mitchell among others.