Nelly Akopian-Tamarina

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is a Russian pianist. Born in Moscow, she studied with Anaida Sumbatian at the Moscow Central Music School. Later at the Moscow Conservatoire she was the last student of the legendary Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser - associate and friend of Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninov and Nikolai Medtner - and the first of Dmitri Bashkirov. Through her teachers she carries on this illustrious branch of the old Russian piano tradition, reaching back to Franz Liszt, Alexander Siloti, Felix Blumenfeld, and Anton Rubinstein.

As a student Nelly Akopian-Tamarina won the Gold Medal at the 1963 Schumann International Competition in Zwickau, and in 1974, succeeding Emil Gilels, was awarded the Robert Schumann Prize. A former soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonie, she appeared as a recitalist and with all the leading orchestras of the former U.S.S.R. and the Eastern Bloc.

Her recordings for Melodiya - including Chopin's Preludes op.28, and the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra - are now collectors' items. In the 1970s, however, her career was blocked by official censorship, preventing her from giving public concerts for more than a decade. In the isolation of these years, she turned to painting for artistic self-expression, her watercolours being selected for exhibition in Moscow.

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina made her debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the mid-1980s followed by engagements around the UK, the USA , and Europe including Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

In the 1990s she gave a series of masterclasses in Prague at the Palfi Palace as Artistic Consultant to the Prague Conservatory. She also gave masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London. In 1997, to commemorate the centenary of Brahms's death, she embarked on a recording cycle of the composer's works for Conifer/BMG and appeared to outstanding critical acclaim at the Dvorak Hall of the Prague Rudolfinum to open both the international piano series of the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and the chamber season of the Czech Philharmonic.

In October 2002, following an absence of twenty-five years, she returned to Russia to play at the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. During the 2006-2007 season, engagements included the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Ukraine State Philharmonic in Kiev, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer's death.^[1]

In January 2008 she returned to the London concert stage playing an all-Brahms programme, 'Piano Tone Poems', in Wigmore Hall.