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Sondra Tammam Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Dorothy Taubman Seminar |
American pianist Sondra Tammam has received enthusiastic acclaim for her performances in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As the unanimous winner of both the Frinna Awerbuch International Competition of the New York Congress of Piano Teachers, the John Meyers Foundation Grant, and the Paderewski Foundation competition, Ms. Tammam’s concerts have taken her to diverse venues including Weill and Merkin Halls in New York, the Harvard Musical Association in Boston, Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Goethe Institute in Casablanca.
A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School, where she received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees respectively. Her teachers have included Edwin Hughes, Jeannette Haien, Dora Zaslavsky, Martin Canin, and Rosina Lhevinne. Sondra is the co-Director of the Dorothy Taubman Seminar at Lincoln Center which is in its sixth season. She coaches with Dorothy Taubman. Ms. Tammam has served as Associate Professor at the Manhattan School of Music and as Classical Music Coordinator of the Summer Arts Institute at Rutgers University.
As an active chamber musician, she has appeared in performances with members of the New York Philharmonic and the Audobon Quartet. She has been featured as soloist with orchestras in the United States led by conductors including Alan Birney, Nicholas Flagello, and Sixten Ehrling. She has broadcast live on WQXR and WNYC in New York and AFN Radio in Germany, and has appeared on WCBS, WOR and PBS television. Other awards include the Juilliard Concerto Competition, the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, and the Gold Medal of the National Guild.
Ms Tammam conducts master classes and lectures in the US and abroad. This season she presented lectures to the Music Educators Association of New Jersey, the New Jersey Music Teachers Association and the Piano Teachers Congress of N.Y. at Steinway Hall and had performance engagements in Rome, Italy and Pepperdine University in California. She has appeared at Music Teachers Association conventions and adjudicated for New York début competitions of the Leschetitsky Association and Piano Teachers Congress among others. Ms. Tammam was selected to be listed in Who’s Who of American Women 2000 and is represented by Primo Artists, Ltd. Her first compact disc includes selections of Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt and her most recent disc by Palexa includes works by Mussorgsky, Schumann and Ben-Haim. The Clavier Magazine (Dec.2005) features an article she wrote on the topic of performance injury.
Reviews - As A Clinician
"I attended the Taubman Institute in Williamstown last July (2001). One of the highlights of that conference was, for me, your program on July 13. You played with such heart, excitement and precision! It was an evening I won’t forget."
Brian P. Bloye
Chicago, Illinois
"Thank you for giving so generously your attentive listening and helpful comments to the young musicians in our competition! The honorarium cannot begin to compensate you for a lifetime of devotion to perfecting your own art, which in turn qualified you to not only win our competition (Frinna Auerbuch International) but to judge the newest generation of pianists."
Beverly Thomson
President of the New York Congress of Piano Teachers
"Besides an impressive and impeccable technique, your playing communicates to your audience. “Warum” brought tears to my eyes. Your comments to the master class students were most encouraging and insightful. I hope we can convince you to visit us again."
Arlette Irving
MTA Oregon
“Your recital was the best. Your lecture and master class were just perfect. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Margaret Littlechales
President MTA Oregon
"It was a joy hearing and watching you execute such fabulous music playing. The audience was mesmerized!"
Michaline Manno
Suburban Music Study Club
"We appreciate your constructive comments and encouragement and look forward to having you serve as an adjudicator at our future festivals."
Nancy Merkel
Piano Teachers Forum of New Jersey
"It was a joy and pleasure having you and to listen to you perform. I hope to have you back again."
Marilyn Alleyne
President Brooklyn Music Teachers Guild
"Thank you very much for your knowledge and inspiration. Marilyn Hazan Treasurer NY Music Teachers Guild Rockland County "
Marilyn Hazan,
Treasurer NY Music Teachers Guild
Rockland County
Reviews - As A Performer
"She impresses as an exceptionally well-schooled pianist, with ingratiating musical instincts. The sheer accuracy of Miss Tammam’s transversals...was certainly impressive."
The New York Times
New York
"She displayed much virtuosity. "
Het Parool
Amsterdam
"Individuality, brilliance, and technical assurance on a high level; these features are always present."
Der Tagesspiegel
Berlin
"Playing with great intensity, she brings out the lyricism and underlying violence of Beethoven."
Steve Holtje, critic (review of Compact Disc)
The New Review of Records
"Sondra Tammam is one of the most brilliant young artists to emerge from New Jersey in some time. Her extraordinary musical insight is mature beyond her years. Her performance was electrifying and impeccable besides."
The Star Ledger
Newark, New Jersey
"She is not merely a good pianist, she is a great pianist. It was an evening of genuine and satisfying musical excitement."
The Times
Scranton, Pennsylvania
“Ms Tammam impressed as a very talented pianist with command over an excellent technique and virtuoso facility.”
The Berkshire Eagle
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
"An internationally recognized pianist, her fluid grace brought a new dimension to the Mozart Concerto No. 23 in C with the Pennsylvania Symphonia Orchestra. In her sensitive, elegant style, she demonstrated anew the lightness and the depth of this composer, who is perhaps the greatest musical genius of our time."
The Express Times
Allentown, Pennsylvania
"Brilliant performance"
Roma
Rome, Italy
"Her solid basis and talent so complete allows the prediction of a brilliant career which has already commenced for Sondra Tammam."
Casablanca, Morocco: A Brilliant Piano Recital By A Guest From America
Moroc Soir
"The Beethoven is well executed with Sondra Tammam particularly compelling in the outer movements’ fierier passages."
International Piano Quarterly
Eric Levi, critic
