Join 2022 Cliburn Competitor Sergey Tanin for a 30-minute recital, followed by a Q&A Session hosted by the librarians.
Make sure to get a copy of Cliburn Notes, an activity booklet about the 2022 Competition with baseball card style statistics about each competitor. Following the visit, follow Sergey’s progress online at cliburn.org, or by attending Watch Parties held at your library.
SERGEY TANIN
Russia I Age 26
Sergey Tanin started piano lessons when he was 5 years old, and—though his parents were not musicians and never pushed him to practice—his commitment to the instrument grew quickly. By age 9, he had decided to be a pianist. Growing up in Yakutia in far Eastern Russia, a long way from major cities and the concerts they might offer, he drew inspiration from recordings by great artists, such as Argerich, Pletnev, Michelangeli, and Rubinstein. He was “taken by the power of music.”
He first gained international recognition in 2018 at the Géza Anda Competition in Switzerland (third prize and audience award), which he followed in 2020 by winning the Kissinger KlavierOlymp in Germany. After graduating in 2019 from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Irina Plotnikova, he moved to Switzerland to attend the Basel Musik Academie under the tutelage of Claudio Martinez-Mehner. He holds the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, and, in 2020, the Swiss Television (SRF) released a documentary about him, entitled The Pianist Who Came in from the Cold.
As a soloist, he has performed with leading symphony orchestras, including the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zürich, Musikkollegium Winterthur, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Bremen Philharmonic, Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic, and Vogtland Philharmony. He has performed in recital in Czechia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Finland, France, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. His debut CD, released in 2021 on the Prospero Classical label, was nominated for an International Classical Music Award.
His most vivid concert memory came in May 2020, during lockdown, when he was asked to perform a livestreamed concert at the famous Hotel Storchen Zurich. They lifted a Steinway by crane to the rooftop, where Sergey played with a view of the mountains, lakes, and people below. “I was so happy at that moment,” he said, “especially when I heard the applause from the streets.”