Peter Elyakim Taussig
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Peter Elyakim Taussig (1944) is a Bach pianist. He was born in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, and grew up in Israel, where his parents emigrated following the Communist take-over in 1949. Musical studies began at age 7 with another Czech refugee, Edith Kraus - a student of Artur Schnabel and niece of Alma Mahler. At age 11, Taussig began studying composition at the Israeli Academy of Music, during which time he began giving concert and radio performances.
After leaving Israel Taussig moved to Canada, where he enrolled at the University of Toronto, studying piano with Anton Kuerti. His debut with the Toronto Symphony (Bartok's 3rd piano concerto) launched his–— solo and chamber music career.
In 1973, Taussig began a long relationship with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where among other things he became a friend and occasional collaborator with pianist Glenn Gould. Over the next decade, Taussig recorded over 200 chamber music broadcasts for the CBC - including the complete works of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms. He gave frequent concerts, both as a soloist - with such conductors as Sir Andrew Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Erich Kunzel and Arthur Fiedler, and with his own chamber ensemble, Camerata. In 1979, Taussig became the musical director of the Stratford Summer Music Festival in Ontario.
After an extended hiatus from concerts and recordings between 1991 and 1995 Taussig returned to performance - but this time with the aim of creating a synthesized version of Bach's The Art of Fugue. During the preparation, however, he was diagnosed with severe carpal tunnel syndrome, coupled with Osteoarthritis in his right hand - preventing him from performing music as he had. Renewed hope came in the form of the Yamaha Disklavier PRO, a MIDI-capable nine-foot concert grand, which allowed Taussig to record with his left hand alone, and a computer mouse.
Taussig has taken on the monumental project of using his new recording technique, which he calls "Musical Sculpting", to record the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach - an undertaking that continues the legacy of his idol, Glenn Gould. The first and second releases from this project (The Art of Fugue and Well-Tempered Clavier, Book.I) have been released on the Pilgrim Records label.
He is the director of PianoKids, an organization that teaches young children music literacy and piano using computers in elementary schools, a method he developed.
