TAMARA-ANNA CISLOWSKA 

Tamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and recognised pianists, winning the 2015 ARIA award for ‘Best Classical Album’ for her landmark recording, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics), which was ‘Recording of the Month’ in BBC Music Magazine and Limelight Magazine. Performing across five continents in repertoire from Scarlatti to Sculthorpe, she has won international prizes in London, Italy and Greece, including the Rovere d’Oro. She was the youngest pianist at age 14 to win ABC Young Performer of the Year, recipient of the Freedman Fellowship (2003) from the Music Council of Australia and in 2012 the APRA-AMCOS Art Music Award for ‘Performance of the Year’ (ACT). Tamara-Anna was also nominated for a 2014 AIR Independent Music Award for ‘Best Independent Classical Release’. 

Her first public performance was at age two playing Bartok, and she commenced studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music four years later. Tamara-Anna 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 toured Japan and the United States as cultural ambassador for Australia.

Tamara-Anna 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 Australian Symphony Orchestras, with conductors such as Matthias Bamert, Edo de WAUCrt, Asher Fisch, Johannes Fritzsch, Christopher Hogwood, James Judd, Markus Stenz, and Yaron Traub. She toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and as recitalist at the Purcell Room in London, Frick Collection in New York, Kleine ZAUCl of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the Sydney Opera House. She is a frequent guest of festivals such as Pierre Cardin’s Festival de Lacoste, the Kurt Weill Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Canberra International Music Festival, MONA FOMA, Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival and Soundstream: Adelaide New Music Festival, and the Newcastle Music Festival.

Tamara-Anna was a founding member of Berlin’s Mozart Piano Quartet, which toured North and South America, and frequently performs with international artists such as composer Elena Kats-Chernin, flautist Sharon Bezaly, tenor Kenneth Tarver, soprano Amelia Farrugia, and the Danish String Quartet. Tamara-Anna was co-founder of Australia Quartet, ensemble in residence at UTS, Sydney. 

Recent soloist engagements include with Sydney Symphony (Mozart) and Queensland Symphony Orchestras (Rachmaninov and Mozart), Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (Rachmaninov), Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (Liszt), and Sydney Youth Orchestra (Britten). 

2016 engagements included a 6-concert national tour with internationally acclaimed composer and pianist Elena Kats-Chernin for the highly anticipated release of “Butterflying”, a recording of Kats-Chernin’s music for ABC Classics. At Darwin Festival, she performed with the Australian World Orchestra (AWO), in Sydney and Singapore, at Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival, Bowral Autumn Music Festival, and two concert tours to Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne and France (Paris, Verdun) for the centenary of Australian composer Frederick Septimus Kelly.

Tamara-Anna also recorded on the album Djarimirri Child of the Rainbow) by Gurrumul. 2014 and 2015 included performances for Sydney Opera House’s All About Women festival, Melbourne Recital Centre, Piers Lane’s Australian Festival of Chamber Music, AWO Chamber Music Festival, Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, North Queensland Arts Awards, the Richard Bonynge Piano Series, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Adelaide’s Recitals Australia, for ABC Classic FM and the APRA-AMCOS Art Music Awards. Tamara-Anna also performed concerts in Puerto Rico (USA), for the Art Gallery of NSW (with mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell) and as guest artist with the Soundstream Collective (Adelaide) and Acacia Quartet (Sydney).

Tamara-Anna has recorded for Chandos, Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, Artworks and MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm), receiving 3 ARIA nominations and critical acclaim, with 7 solo albums reaching the top 10 in the classical charts. Her 2014 release, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics) reached No.1 in the ARIA Classical and Limelight charts and was ‘Editor’s Choice – Instrumental’ in BBC Music Magazine, January 2015. The 2013 CD, Close your eyes and I’ll close mine (Tall Poppies) with violinist Anna McMichael was selected as ‘CD of the Week’ on both ABC Classic FM and Fine Music FM, and nominated for an AIR Independent Music Award in 2014. Tamara presents the weekly program ‘Duet’ for ABC Classic FM with guests including Lang Lang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Steven Isserlis and Lisa Batiashvili, and also edits for Boosey & Hawkes (Berlin).