Sergey Tarnowsky

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Sergei Tarnowski (Sergei Tarnovsky, Sergei Tarnovski, Sergei Tarnofski) (1882-1976) was a Russian pianist who studied with Anna Essipova at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (she herself had been a student and then wife of Theodor Leschetizky and later taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1893 to 1908. Among her pupils there were Sergei Prokofiev and Simon Barere). Tarnowsky later become piano professor at the Kiev Conservatory, where he taught Vladimir Horowitz and was his only teacher from the years of 1914 to 1919 (Horowitz was 11 years old when he first entered Tarnowsky's class and 16 when he left to study with Felix Blumenfeld). Tarnowsky emigrated to the United States after the Russian Revolution and settled in California, where for the 1940's until death he was one of the most sougt-after piano teachers. Among the many pianists he taught during his years in Southern California is the Cuban virtuoso Horacio Gutierrez, who Tarnowsky claimed was the biggest pianistic talent he had encountered since Vladimir Horowitz.