BIOGRAPHY
ARIA award-winning pianist, Tamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’s most renowned, respected and celebrated classical pianists, performing and recording in Australia and internationally to critical and public acclaim. Earning international prizes in London, Italy and Greece and touring Japan and the USA as cultural ambassador for Australia, Tamara’s accolades include ABC Young Performer of the Year, the Freedman Fellowship, an Art Music Award for ‘Performance of the Year’ (ACT) and the 2015 ARIA award for 'Best Classical Album'. With millions of streams on Spotify alone, Tamara is also celebrated as a regular presenter on ABC Classic FM including her weekly show, Duet; as curator and music director, librettist, and composer.
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 toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. As recitalist she has performed at the Purcell Room in London, Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Frick Collection in New York, and the Sydney Opera House.
Frequent guest of orchestras and festivals worldwide, Tamara has performed as soloist with the London Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, and all major Australasian symphony orchestras with conductors such as Matthias Bamert, Edo de Waart, Asher Fisch, Johannes Fritzsch, Karina Canellakis and Alondra de la Parra. Recent engagements include concerti by Gorecki, Liszt, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich and Elena Kats-Chernin’s Piano Concerto no.3, Lebewohl, commissioned for Cislowska and included in the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Vision 20/20 series, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Tamara wrote the libretto for Human Waves with music by Elena Kats-Chernin, commissioned by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for its Centenary Celebrations and performed at the piano in its world premiere. She has toured to the USA with CIRCA’s En Masse for Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival and given solo and chamber recitals around the world including for New York’s Frick Collection, London’s Purcell Room, Sydney Opera House, Perth International Arts Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Canberra International Music Festival. Tamara was a featured artist on the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s tour and recording of Mountain – A Cinematic and Musical Odyssey, including Sydney Film Festival and at the Barbican (UK). Highly sought-after for chamber collaborations, Tamara co-founded the Mozart Piano Quartet which toured Europe and North America and won numerous Echo awards in Germany, and has performed alongside world-renowned artists such as Dawn Upshaw, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sharon Bezaly and the Danish String Quartet.
The 2023/24 season held concerto engagements with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (cond. Dmitri Matvienko), with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for the premiere of Kats-Chernin’s Ancient Letters concerto for piano, later recorded for release in 2025. She played as pianist in the sold-out Sydney Opera House world premiere of ‘Human Waves’, commissioned by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for its Centenary Celebrations, with music by Kats-Chernin and libretto by Cislowska, and to a sold-out Ulumbarra Theatre as soloist with the Bendigo Symphony Orchestra. Chamber performances included a curated program for Bleach Festival with soprano Tarita Botsman (Gold Coast), for Canberra International Music Festival, in recital for Musica Viva Tasmania, Piano Plus, the Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival and Australian Digital Concert Hall’s 88 Keys piano festival in Melbourne.
In 2025, Tamara returns as soloist with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in its sellout Classic100 In Concert performances at Arts Centre Melbourne, tours nationally with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in ‘Theremin & beyond’ with Carolina Eyck, as well as in the orchestra’s 50th anniversary tour of ‘Mountain’. She writes and performs in Human Waves, her work with Elena Kats-Chernin, on two pianos with specially commissioned new verses, for River City Voices, and is guest soloist in ‘East in Symphony’ concerts with the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra. Continuing to host international stars on DUET, Tamara also performs in recital, including with Elena Kats-Chernin, four hands at the piano. Tamara’s highly anticipated new recording of Kats-Chernin’s concerti with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is due for August release on ABC Classic.
As Music Director and performer, Tamara curated the Joan’s 8 Grands concert spectacular and Elena Kats-Chernin’s Birthday Bash concert featuring over 80 musicians, presented by City Recital Hall, as well as ‘6 Grands 12 Hands’ for Sydney Festival.
Highly sought-after for chamber collaborations, she has performed recitals with world-renowned soprano, Dawn Upshaw, Greta Bradman and Teddy Tahu Rhodes; recorded and toured for Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Mountain for Sydney Film Festival and the Barbican (UK); for Dark MOFO (Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time) at Port Arthur, Tasmania, and in the Australian World Orchestra Chamber Ensemble.
Tamara was a founding member of Berlin’s Mozart Piano Quartet, touring North and South America in this ensemble, and frequently performs with international artists including flautist Sharon Bezaly, tenor Kenneth Tarver, and the Danish String Quartet, at festivals such as Pierre Cardin’s Festival de Lacoste, the Kurt Weill Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Canberra International Music Festival, and Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival. Tamara has collaborated with composer/pianist Elena Kats-Chernin in numerous concerts, recording chart-topping albums, Butterflying, and Unsent Love Letters: meditations on Erik Satie (ABC Classics), the latter nominated for a 2017 ARIA award for ‘Best Classical Album’ and available worldwide on Deutsche Grammophon.
With over 8 million streams annually on Spotify alone and ten ARIA no.1 albums including One Summer’s Day: Studio Ghibli favourites for solo piano by Joe Hisaishi (ABC Classics), Into Silence recorded with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Unsent Love Letters: meditations on Erik Satie (Deutsche Grammophon), Tamara has recorded for Chandos, Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, Artworks and MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm). Her renowned 2014 release, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics) enjoyed months at no.1 in the ARIA Classical and Limelight charts and was ‘Editor’s Choice – Instrumental’ in BBC Music Magazine, January 2015. 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 presents weekly program ‘Duet’ for ABC Classic FM, with guests such as Lang Lang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Steven Isserlis and Ben Folds, with her album of recorded live performances from the show, 'DUET - Tamara-Anna Cislowska and guests' nominated for ‘Best Classical Album’ in the 2022 ARIA Awards. With an unparalleled breadth of experience as performer, music director, presenter, librettist, and now composer, Tamara also edits for Boosey & Hawkes (Berlin) and is frequently invited to judging panels across the arts and classical music.
Tamara-Anna Cislowska enjoys the special distinction of having a new, premium varietal of Australian strawberry named in her honour by the Australian Strawberry Breeding Program.