Biography

Winner of the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, 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 Communale in Bologna, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall and, most recently, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, for her New York recital debut on the CAG Concert Series.

In 2004-05 Ms. Bannister continues her international career with a return to Spain’s Santander Festival for recitals and chamber music, as well as her recital debut at Tokyo’s Nikkei Hall. In the US, her itinerary features recitals in New York and Philadelphia in addition to a performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme of Paganini” with the Charlotte Philharmonic. In Spring 2005 her first recording, featuring three late piano sonatas of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), will be released on the Naxos label. Summer 2005 engagements include a return to Japan and a recital at the Tuckamore Festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

During 2003-04, 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. Ms. Bannister was hailed in the Deseret Morning News as “an expressive pianist who plays with feeling and emotional involvement. Her technical skills are equally impressive, and she had ample opportunity to display both during her well-chosen program.” Other highlights from that season include recitals for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Rockefeller University’s Tri-Institutional Noon Recitals, Patrons for Young Artists and Merkin Concert Hall.

Ms. Bannister has performed with numerous orchestras, including the New Haven Symphony, American Civic Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, Macao Philharmonic, Craiova Symphony Orchestra in Romania and L’Aquila Filarmonica in Italy. She performed recently at the Kurtág Festival in London as part of the South Bank series at the Royal Festival Hall, and her international summer festival appearances include Ravinia, Schleswig-Holstein, Amsterdam’s Holland Music Sessions, England’s Norwich Festival and Festival Encuentro de Musica y Academica de Santander, Spain.

Ms. 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, Ms. Bannister formed a piano trio at Yale called Trio Volante, which was awarded the Weill Hall Debut 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 also worked with members of the Tokyo String 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 US. Ms. Bannister 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.

Ms. Bannister 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 Richard Goode, with whom Ms. Bannister is now studying as one of a handful of pianists selected by Mr. Goode to work with him.

January 2005

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