Press
Tanya Bannister, an exceptionally talented young pianist…is fortunate to have three attractive composition commissioned for her…and well recorded. …Bannister plays all these with a scintillating tone and a subtle sense of chording and dynamics. A beautiful piano tone is a rare thing these days, and she has it.”
-American Record Guide
Fanfare Magazine
Issue 32:6 July/Aug 2009
Tanya Bannister plays the piano with an energy and command of color that dares the listener not to be delighted. And so I was, although I found her program to be a mixed bag, with too much emphasis on backward-looking new music. David Del Tredici (here rather grandly, and I think inaccurately, referred to as the father of neo-Romantic music!) takes Satie as a leaping off point for three more Gymnopédies, and although he violates the original conception of brevity and focused simplicity in his own music, his endearing lyrical voice carries the day. Christopher Theofanidis simply does not possess a similar sense of imagination and originality, and his little suite of four works comes of as hackneyed and sentimental (although Bannister does find a Prokofiev-like intensity in the final number, labeled “threatening”).
Suzanne Farrin’s 2005 This is the story she began, that title inspired by Ovid, has a fantasy-like construction, with a harmonic sensibility that suggests Messiaen. It is music of concision, power, and no little beauty, especially in the hands of Bannister. Sheila Silver takes French impressionism as a starting point for her preludes, especially the first one, which is evocative of the sea. Her horizons expand from there, as the inspiration of nature takes her into the realm of dream-like meditation and more adventuresome harmonies. The clarity of her writing, though, never shuts out the listener, allowing for a relatively easy access to her ample imagination.
Connecticut Post, October 2009
The Greenwich Symphony opened its 2009-10 season last weekend with a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, marking the 200th anniversary of his birth with a performance of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” Copland wrote this piece in 1942 as part of a series of commissions to celebrate famous Americans.
Robert Sherman, who has been with classical music radio station WQXR for more than 50 years, joined the orchestra as narrator. In the pre-concert talk, Sherman said that it was the composer’s wish that the narration “succeed not through acting but through the voice alone.” Sherman succeeded with this endeavor. His virtuosity is in his sense of timing and the way he paced the allocation for each narrated segment. He spoke with clarity and developed the power of the message from a sense of sincerity. It was a refreshing interpretation.
The Greenwich Symphony, conducted by Music Director David Gilbert, set a strong background for Sherman. The music was poised and dramatic, punctuating the text in coordinated silences and precise swells.
To close the first half of the program, pianist Tanya Bannister joined the orchestra as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488, in A-major. She played with kaleidoscopic touch. Bannister found many ways to shade lines and articulate ideas that shifted from the surface into deeper layers of the musical fabric. Her first-movement cadenza opened with Mozartian gestures before becoming stormy in a central passage and flashy at the point just before the trills sewed the movement back into place.The orchestra was not always focused and sounded heavy. As an example, the wind entry moments before the close of the Andante was loud, and crushed the delicate pizzicato texture of the strings and the witty line that Bannister was voicing. There were stronger moments in the Presto finale, where the ensemble rallied and sprinted, along with Bannister, to a rousing conclusion.
Tanya’s review of her Kennedy Center performance:
“Bannister played with intelligence, poetry and proportion … was particularly impressed by the way she gave all the Brahms variations their own splendid little lives and characters while yoking them firmly into a grander totality . ” Tim Page from the Washington Post (29th January 2007). Read more >>
Tanya featured in Symphony Magazine as one of 6 artists to watch.
For the full feature, click here >>
Review from April issue of BBC Music Magazine for Clementi Recording:
“Aged 27 at the time of the recording (2004), Tanya Bannister is at the other end of her career, yet she is clearly an artist to watch – and no wonder when she can count Claude Frank and Richard Goode as her main teachers. Her recital appears to have been chosen especially to emphasize Clementi’s impact on Beethoven – you can feel the latter’s Op.2 waiting in the wings. Accordingly Bannister plays up the music’s dynamism and occasionally restless spirit – Barenboim’s EMI Beethoven sonata cycle is readily brought to mind. Yet although she possesses enviable articulate and accurate fingers, she is also sensitive to the music’s many lyrical asides. A most impressive Naxos debut.” From page 96.
– BBC Music Magazine
Biography also came to the fore in Bannister’s impassioned take on Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto: delicate piano trills set up velvet entrances by the horns; loping orchestral passages barely kept pace with rattling keyboard interjections.
The gold medalist pushed her tempos in a reading that emphasized the tensions between soloist and orchestra … it also yielded a musical drama perfectly tuned to post-Katrina New Orleans.
–
Times Picayune, March 2006
Tanya Bannister on 2005 Symphony’s Guide to Emerging Artists
(PDF Document) Read More >>
From the All Music Guide:
Muzio Clementi ’s sonatas are a peculiar animal. He was a composer whose works straddled the Classical and Romantic periods both temporally and stylistically. Therefore, pianists who play his sonatas have a wide range of choices when making decisions about articulation, dynamics, and other details that will determine how the music sounds and feels, not to mention choosing between harpsichord , fortepiano , or modern piano for an instrument. This Naxos release includes three sonatas, which date from 1795 to 1821, performed by Tanya Bannister on a modern piano. She gives all of them more of a Classical interpretation, using a soft, graceful touch and shying away from drama for drama’s sake. The first sonata, in G minor, Op. 34, No. 2 , is one that was a favorite of Vladimir Horowitz . Bannister is much less forceful in its opening movement than Horowitz , but that doesn’t mean it lacks purpose. Its middle movement sounds like a languid gavotte , while that of the A major, Op. 50, No. 1 , marked Adagio sostenuto e patetico , is quietly elegaic. She seems to approach the emotion of these works with a more easy-going, instinctively unruffled demeanor, while still giving them plenty of interest and subtle shaping in even the smallest of phrases. It could be argued that she is ignoring the ‘con sentimento,’ ‘con anima,’ and ‘patetico’ markings, especially in the Op. 50, No. 1 — one of Clementi ’s last and, stylistically speaking, most Romantic sonatas — but the way she interprets the music isn’t inappropriate. The finales of both that sonata and the E flat major, Op. 41 , are cheerful and allow her to show off her smooth legato technique in scales and ornaments that ripple along pleasantly. There is a certain amount of virtuosic showmanship in these sonatas, but Bannister concentrates more on the big picture and the overall impression of each movement. The recording’s sound isn’t too close or deep, which, in a way, adds to the elegance of the performance by not letting the fortissimos and pianissimos become too theatrical. Bannister certainly makes a strong and agreeable case for the more Classical interpretation of Clementi ’s music.
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Patsy Morita, All Music Guide
When the “Rhapsody” needed diabolical bite, Bannister had the nimbleness and muscle to produce. When the music went for luxury — as Rachmaninoff usually does, sooner or later — Bannister delivered that, too. She not only made the filigree glitter, but she flecked even the speediest bits with contrasts of color.
– The Charlotte Observer
“…the excellent pianist Tanya Bannister shaped things with
impressive virtuosity.”
– The London Times
“…Tanya has a wonderful stage personality, combined with a
sure sense of style and great virtuosity.”
– Peter Frankl
“…Bannister is an expressive pianist who plays with feeling
and emotional involvement. ” MORE >>
– Deseret Morning News