TALLIS BARKER
Tallis Barker has performed throughout Europe and the U.S.A. as a solo pianist and chamber musician, appearing at festivals including Tanglewood and Aspen, and on WQXR New York. He is a prizewinner of the International Stravinsky Awards and the New York Chopin Competition. As a composer his works have been performed on both sides of the Atlantic. After beginning piano at the age of four, Tallis studied as a child at the New England Conservatory. He then went on to concentrate in composition at Harvard, while also developing his piano studies with Seymour Bernstein. His other most influential teachers have been Joseph Kalichstein and Luise Vosgerchian, and he has played in masterclasses for renowned figures such as Richard Goode and Byron Janis. Finishing magna cum laude at Harvard, he won numerous awards, including a Fulbright to Oxford and then an Erasmus Scholarship to Vienna, the research of which culminated in a doctorate on Beethoven performance practice (Oxford, 1996). Sustaining an academic element in his work, he has lectured at Oxford and at the Open University.
His numerous publications range from original research articles in the Music Review to program notes for artists including Krystian Zimerman and Maurizio Pollini on Deutsche Grammophon. His currently performed repertory includes both Brahms piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s Second and Third Concertos, Beethoven’s Emperor and Triple Concertos, as well as solo programs of his own compositions and transcriptions.
He divides most of his time between England and Hungary, where he lives with his wife and three children.