Tamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’s most renowned, ARIA award-winning pianists, performing and recording in Australia and internationally to critical and public acclaim. Earning international prizes in London, Italy and Greece such as the Rovere d’Oro, and touring Japan and the USA as cultural ambassador for Australia, Tamara’s accolades include ABC Young Performer of the Year, the Freedman Fellowship, an Art Music Award for ‘Performance of the Year’ (ACT) and the 2015 ARIA award for ‘Best Classical Album’. With several million streams on Spotify alone, Tamara is also celebrated as a presenter on ABC Classic FM including her weekly show, Duet; as curator and music director, librettist, and now, composer.
Giving her first public performance at age two playing Bartok, and commencing studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music four years later, Tamara gave her first orchestral performance at age eight. She is the most awarded prizewinner at the Sydney Performing Arts Challenge, winner of the prestigious David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship for pianists, and toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. As recitalist she has performed at the Purcell Room in London, Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Frick Collection in New York, and the Sydney Opera House.
Frequent guest of orchestras and festivals worldwide, Tamara’s world premiere performance of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Piano Concerto no.3, Lebewohl, with Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alondra de la Parra lead to the work’s nomination in the 2019 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards for ‘Orchestral Work of the Year’, and inclusion in the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Vision 20/20 series, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. She has performed as soloist with the London Philharmonic, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, and all major Australasian symphony orchestras with conductors such as Matthias Bamert, Edo de Waart, Asher Fisch, Johannes Fritzsch, Christopher Hogwood, James Judd, Karina Canellakis, Alondra de la Parra, and Markus Stenz. Recent soloist performances include with Sydney Symphony (Mozart) and Queensland Symphony Orchestras (Rachmaninov, Mozart and Kats-Chernin), Tasmanian Symphony (Gorecki, Kats-Chernin), Canberra Symphony (Prokofiev), and concerti by Britten and Shostakovich with Sydney Youth Orchestras and The Metropolitan Orchestra (Sydney). In New Zealand, Tamara has performed with Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (Rachmaninov), and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (Liszt, Gershwin).
In 2025, Tamara returned as soloist with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (Poulenc, cond. Emilia Hoving) and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for its sellout ‘Classic 100 in Concert’ performances at Hamer Hall, and as guest soloist for Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Centre performances with the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra. Tamara toured nationally for the Australian Chamber Orchestra with renowned theremin player Carolina Eyck, and for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary tour of ‘Mountain’. A notable highlight included two specially commissioned new verses for Human Waves, performed by Tamara and Elena on two pianos with River City Voices in Western Sydney. Continuing to host international stars on DUET and feature in the ABC’s Classic100 Countdown, 2025 also brought the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed release of Kats-Chernin’s concerti – Lebewohl, and Ancient Letters – with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Fritzsch and world premiere solo piano pieces, with praise for Lebewohl in Limelight Magazine proclaiming, “The concerto certainly belongs in the most brilliant Australian works so far of the 21st century.”
2026 season highlights include as piano soloist with the West Australian Symphony (Kats-Chernin, cond. Kristian Sallinen) and Canberra Symphony Orchestras (Gershwin, cond. Jessica Cottis), regional touring with Elena Kats-Chernin and solo recitals across the country.
Recent concerto engagements include with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Pejacevich, cond. Dmitri Matvienko), with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for the premiere of Kats-Chernin’s Ancient Letters concerto for piano (previously premiered with harpsichord by Mahan Esfahani); she performed at the piano in the sold-out Sydney Opera House world premiere of ‘Human Waves’, commissioned by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for its Centenary Celebrations, with music by Kats-Chernin and libretto by Cislowska, and to a sold-out Ulumbarra Theatre as soloist with the Bendigo Symphony Orchestra. Chamber performances included a curated program for Bleach Festival with soprano Tarita Botsman (Gold Coast, QLD), for Canberra International Music Festival, in recital for Musica Viva Tasmania, Piano Plus, the Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival and Australian Digital Concert Hall’s 88 Keys piano festival in Melbourne.
Other recent highlights include sold-out concerts for Sydney Festival, and as pianist in CIRCA’s En Masse for Brisbane Festival (Australia) and the Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival (USA). As Music Director and performer, Tamara curated the Joan’s 8 Grands concert spectacular, Sydney Festival’s 12 hands 6 grands concerts, and Elena Kats-Chernin’s Birthday Bash concert featuring over 80 musicians, presented by City Recital Hall.
Highly sought-after for chamber collaborations, Tamara has performed recitals with world-renowned soprano, Dawn Upshaw, flautist Sharon Bezaly, tenor Kenneth Tarver, and the Danish String Quartet, at festivals such as Pierre Cardin’s Festival de Lacoste, the Kurt Weill Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, with soprano Greta Bradman, and baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes. She recorded and toured for Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Mountain for Sydney Film Festival and the Barbican (UK); for Dark MOFO (Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time) at Port Arthur, Tasmania, and in the Australian World Orchestra Chamber Ensemble. As a founding member of Berlin’s Mozart Piano Quartet (with violinist Natalie Chee), Tamara toured North and South Americal; she was also founding pianist in the Australian Piano Quartet. Tamara has collaborated across 3 decades with composer/pianist Elena Kats-Chernin in numerous projects, concerts, and musical works, recording chart-topping albums, Butterflying, and Unsent Love Letters: meditations on Erik Satie (ABC Classics), the latter nominated for a 2017 ARIA award for ‘Best Classical Album’ and available worldwide on Deutsche Grammophon.
With over 4 million annual streams on Spotify and ten ARIA no.1 albums including One Summer’s Day: Studio Ghibli favourites for solo piano by Joe Hisaishi (ABC Classics), Into Silence recorded with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Unsent Love Letters: meditations on Erik Satie, available on Deutsche Grammophon outside Australia, Tamara has recorded for Chandos, Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, Artworks and MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm). Her renowned 2014 release, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics) enjoyed months at no.1 in the ARIA Classical and Limelight charts and was ‘Editor’s Choice – Instrumental’ in BBC Music Magazine, January 2015. Earning 5 star reviews, the landmark recording was praised as “Australian piano gold” (BBC Music Magazine), “a profoundly affecting release” (Gramophone), and “an Australian treasure” (news.com.au).
Tamara presents weekly program ‘Duet’ for ABC Classic FM, with guests such as Cate Blanchett, Lang Lang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Isata Kanneh-Mason and Ben Folds, with her album of recorded live performances from the show, ‘DUET – Tamara-Anna Cislowska and guests’ nominated for ‘Best Classical Album’ in the 2022 ARIA Awards. With an unparalleled breadth of experience as performer, music director, presenter, librettist, and now composer, Tamara also edits for Boosey & Hawkes (Berlin) and is frequently invited to judging panels across the arts and classical music.
Tamara-Anna Cislowska enjoys the special distinction of having a new, premium varietal of Australian strawberry named in her honour in 2021 by the Australian Strawberry Breeding Program.
For more information, please visit www.tamara-annacislowska.com
Photography: Tyler Alberti Photography
Latest News
Tamara’s latest album, and collaboration with composer Elena Kats-Chernin AO, features the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Fritzsch. ‘Ancient Letters‘ (2025, ABC Classics) is the name of one of the two concerti on the album, along with Kats-Chernin’s Piano Concerto no.3, Lebewohl, praised by Limelight: “For many years, [composer Elena Kats-Chernin] and pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska’s impressive synergy has produced many immersive works and here the soloist is alive to every nuance in this kaleidoscopic and trenchant score. … The concerto certainly belongs in the most brilliant Australian works so far of the 21st century.” Full review here.
November 2021, Tamara releases DUET (ABC Classics) with 22 acclaimed and ARIA-winning guest artists who perform a duet performance, broadcast live on air, with Tamara. The album reached top ten in both ARIA’s Classical and Classical/Crossover charts. Read more here
Tamara’s 2014 CD, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano (ABC Classics), enjoys weeks at no.1 on the ARIA Classical Charts, and 5 star reviews in BBC Music Magazine where it is ‘Recording of the Month – Instrumental’, in Limelight magazine where it is ‘Editor’s Choice’ and in Fine Music Magazine.
