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Tanya Bannister

Winner, 2003 Concert Artists Guild Competition
Gold Medal, 2005 New Orleans International Piano Competition

Winner of the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the pianist Tanya Bannister's burgeoning career has already brought her to many of the world's great concert halls, including recitals in the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Salle Cortot in Paris, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Tokyo's Nikkei Hall, London's Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls, and the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall for her New York recital dÃ©but on the CAG Concert Series. In July 2005 she confirmed her status among the leading pianists of her generation when she was awarded the Gold Medal at the New Orleans International Piano Competition. Performance prizes resulting from this victory include numerous orchestral and recital engagements, including a return to Wigmore Hall for a recital. Current orchestral highlights include concerto appearances with the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans, the Baton Rouge and Acadania Symphonies in Louisiana, New Haven Symphony Charlotte (NC) Philharmonic, Victoria (TX) Symphony, American Civic Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, Macao Philharmonic, Craiova Symphony Orchestra in Romania and L'Aquila Filarmonica in Italy. In addition, she collaborates with the pianist Stephen Buck, her husband, for performances of Mozart's Concerto in E flat for Two Pianos, K. 365. In autumn 2003 she was chosen as a guest artist of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation for their 'Music in Our

Schools' Program, featuring a three-day residency in various public schools in and around Salt Lake City and a critically acclaimed recital at the Assembly Room on Temple Square. Among the many international festivals at which she has performed are the KurtÃ¡g Festival in London (as part of the South Bank series at the Royal Festival Hall), Ravinia, Schleswig-Holstein, Amsterdam's Holland Music Sessions, Tuckamore Festival in St John's, Newfoundland, England's Norwich Festival and Festival Encuentro de Musica y Academica de Santander, Spain.

Tanya Bannister was recently awarded the prestigious Wigmore award from the Royal Academy of Music and is also a winner of the Woolsey Hall Competition at Yale. A highlight of the numerous competitions she won earlier in her career is the Asian Kawai Piano Competition, which brought her significant exposure on radio and television throughout Southeast Asia. An avid chamber musician, she formed a piano trio at Yale called Trio Volante, which was awarded the Weill Hall DÃ©but Prize at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in 1999. She has performed with members of the Vermeer String Quartet, Jesse Levine and Michel Lethiec, and she has also worked with members of the Tokyo Quartet.

Born in 1977 in Hong Kong, Tanya Bannister began her piano studies at the age of five, and her early teachers included Gabriel Kwok at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and Sequeira Costa in the United States. She received her undergraduate degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied with Christopher Elton and Hamish Milne, and while in Europe, she also worked with Karl-Heinz Kammerling at the Mozarteum Salzburg and with Franco Scala at the prestigious Accademia Pianistica in Imola, Italy. Most recently she received her Master of Music degree from Yale University, where she studied with Claude Frank. She has been a participant in master classes with such eminent pianists as Christoph Eschenbach, Peter Frankl, Lazar Berman, John O'Conor, Barry Douglas, Alfred Brendel, Ferenc Rados, Boris Berman, Lev Naumov, and with Richard Goode, with whom she most recently studied as one of a handful of pianists selected by Richard Goode to work with him.

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Discography