Tamara-Anna Cislowska

Piano

Tamara-Anna Cislowska

“Australian piano gold... transfixing”
– BBC Music Magazine, 2015

" A profoundly affecting release"
– Gramophone, 2015

Tamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and recognised pianists. Soloist, recitalist and chamber music specialist, she performs in Australia and worldwide in repertoire spanning three centuries, to critical and public acclaim, with a passion for bringing Australian music to the world. Tamara has won international prizes in London, Italy and Greece, including the Rovere d’Oro, and in Australia, awards such as ABC Young Performer of the Year, the Freedman Fellowship from the Music Council of Australia, the 2012 Art Music Award for ‘Performance of the Year’ (ACT) and the 2015 ARIA for 'Best Classical Album' with her landmark recording of the complete piano works of Peter Sculthorpe.

A formidable recording artist with three ARIA no.1 albums, her new solo CD for ABC Classics with music by Elena Kats-Chernin, Unsent Love Letter: meditations on Erik Satie, is now proudly available on Deutsche Grammophon worldwide outside Australia and New Zealand. A regular presenter on ABC Classic FM radio, Tamara also edits for Boosey & Hawkes (Berlin).

Tamara is a regular guest of orchestras and festivals in Europe, America and Australasia, including as soloist with the London Philharmonic, the New Zealand Symphony, and all the Australian Symphony Orchestras with conductors such as Matthias Bamert, Edo de Waart, Asher Fisch, Johannes Fritzsch, Christopher Hogwood, James Judd, Markus Stenz, and Yaron Traub. Recent soloist engagements include with Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (Rachmaninov), Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (Liszt), Sydney Symphony (Mozart) and Queensland Symphony Orchestras (Rachmaninov and Mozart), and Sydney Youth Orchestra (Britten).

Highly sought-after for chamber collaborations, Tamara was a founding member of Berlin’s Mozart Piano Quartet, touring North and South America in this ensemble. She has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and performed as recitalist in London’s Purcell Room, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York’s Frick Collection, and the Sydney Opera House. She is a frequent guest of festivals, including such as Pierre Cardin’s Festival de Lacoste, the Kurt Weill Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Canberra International Music Festival, MONA FOMA, Darwin, Fremantle and Perth International Arts Festivals, Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival and Soundstream: Adelaide New Music Festival.

The current season includes festivals such as Perth International Arts Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Dark MOFO, Castlemaine State Festival, Bellingen Festival and more for Musica Viva, along with numerous performances with celebrated composer, Elena Kats-Chernin. Tamara tours and records with the Australian Chamber Orchestra for ‘Mountain’, is Music Director for a new show with soprano Amelia Farrugia, and City Recital Hall’s presentation of ‘Elena Kats-Chernin Birthday Bash’ in Sydney and performs Wild Swans in a stunning new concert format with visuals by Regis Lansac. Engagements also include for Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, the Art Gallery of NSW, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, and concerts in Sydney and Canberra for The Flowers of War project.

2017 sees the release of two new albums: Unsent Love Letters: meditations on Erik Satie, her second acclaimed collaboration with Elena Kats-Chernin, released by ABC Classics in Australia/NZ and Deutsche Grammophon for the rest of the world, and Into Silence, a solo and orchestral album with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for ABC Classics of the music of Gorecki, Part, Pelecis, and Vasks. She also continues to present regularly on ABC Classic FM.

Tamara has recorded for Chandos, Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, Artworks and MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm), receiving 4 ARIA nominations and critical acclaim, with 8 solo albums all reaching the top 10 in the classical charts and 3 of these reaching no.1. In addition to Butterflying: piano music of Elena Kats-Chernin (ABC Classics, 2016) which earned enormous popular acclaim and was Limelight ‘Editor’s Choice’, her 2014 release, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics) enjoyed several weeks at no.1 in the ARIA Classical and Limelight charts and was ‘Editor’s Choice – Instrumental’ in BBC Music Magazine. Earning 5 star reviews, the landmark recording was praised as “Australian piano gold” (BBC Music Magazine), “a profoundly affecting release” (Gramophone), and “an Australian treasure” (news.com.au). Tamara was also nominated for a 2014 AIR Independent Music Award for ‘Best Independent Classical Release’ with Close your eyes and I’ll close mine (Tall Poppies).

Giving her first public performance at age two playing Bartok, and commencing studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music four years later, Tamara gave her first orchestral performance at age eight. She is the most awarded prizewinner at the Sydney Performing Arts Challenge, winner of the prestigious David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship for pianists, and has toured Japan and the United States as cultural ambassador for Australia.

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