Alison has been a featured soloist with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony and the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra. She is the top prizewinner of Coeur d’Alene Symphony’s National Young Artists Competition, Thursday Musical’s Scholarship Competition, the Dorothy van Waynen Piano Competition, Graves Piano Competition, and is the second prize winner of the Midwest International Piano Competition. Her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio on KPBX 91.1 (Spokane Public Radio) and WOI-FM 90.1 (Iowa Public Radio).

Alison holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Minnesota where she studied with Lydia Artymiw. Her previous teachers include Jon Kimura Parker at Rice University and Angela Cheng at Oberlin Conservatory, along with Hans Boepple and Jed Galant from her pre-college years. She is an alumna of various summer music festivals such as Pianofest in the Hamptons, The Banff Centre’s Piano Master Class, Aspen Music Festival and School, Seattle Piano Institute, Mänttä Music Festival, and the Castleman Quartet Program. 

Aside from her career as a solo pianist, Alison is also an avid chamber musician and is a founding member of a piano trio called Ensemble 1828, which brings several different programs on tour each year. She often appears onstage with cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak; together, the two regularly perform the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas and recently recorded and released their first album, Preludes and Prologues. Alison has also performed in recital with Charles Castleman, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Da Camera of Houston. She spends her summers as a staff pianist at the Castleman Quartet Program, and is in demand as a collaborative pianist around the Bay Area during the rest of the year.