Emma Tahmizian

Emma Tahmizian was eleven when she was sent to represent Bulgaria in Moscow, and not yet twenty when the Robert Schumann Competition at Zwickau made her name in 1977; prizes at the Tchaikovsky, Leeds and Van Cliburn competitions came in the decade that followed. Born in Plovdiv in 1957, she studied at the Sofia Conservatory with Julia and Konstantin Ganev and at the Juilliard School with Adele Marcus. She has long been based in the United States and plays across Europe and North America in a repertoire that reaches from Beethoven and Schumann to composers now living: Sebastian Currier has written several works for her, including a piano concerto she premiered. Penka Petkova taught her during the first fifteen years of her training, before her studies in Sofia. She was a founding member of the ensemble Mosaic, has recorded Currier's music as well as giving it first performances, and her long association with the Bowdoin festival has involved teaching as much as playing.