Tara Guram (b. 1971):
Initially a geneticist, Tara was subsequently a prize-winning postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music, where she studied with Edwin Roxburgh. Her music has been played from the Southbank Centre to Carnegie Hall, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC Sounds, and on American, Canadian and European radio stations.
Previous commissions have included pieces for the Brighton Festival, the International Harp Festival, the Sound and Image Festival in Bonn, and Street Orchestra Live's Ravi Shankar at 101 project. Tara's Requiem (a commission from the duo Animo) was released by Ravello Records last year. In her youth Tara won several composition prizes including the U.K. and Eire Composition Platform 2002 Audience Prize, and was a finalist for the Young Composer’s Award in 2000.
Tara has collaborated with the wonderful concert pianist Anna Kislitsyna, who premiered Tara's Piano Sonata in 2022 at Carnegie Hall. Anna has recorded it for her album of contemporary, solo piano works, Piano Spectrums for Navona Records, released in April 2022.
Tara’s Sonata for Solo Viola written in 2021, recorded by the renowned violist Peter Sulski was released in December 2022, also with Navona Records.
Tara has recently started to write music for media. Her piece, Elegy for prepared piano and tape, was broadcast by the annual temporary art radio station Radiophrenia, during their festival last February. She has been signed to the production music company Media Tracks. Her debut album Mindful to Manic was released last year and sync credits include Tagesschau 24. Tara is currently writing and recording further albums for them.
Tara's work Hesychia for violin & electronics, which she also performed, was chosen by MNC Recordings to feature in their NMC Lockdown Music Platform. This work features on NMC Recording's album "In These Exceptional Times" which was released in October 2023.
Discography:
Loopy Valse on the album Inscapes 2
performed by Adam & Catherine Summerhayes, Sargasso Records
Piano Sonata on the album Piano Spectrums
performed by Anna Kislitsyna, Navona Records
Sonata for Solo Viola on the album Bowed Colours
performed by Peter Sulski, Navona Records
Requiem (lullaby for my mother) on the album Animo 2
performed by Animo, Ravello Records
Hesychia on the album In These Exceptional Times
performed by Tara Guram, NMC Recordings
Music for Media:
Album on the Heritage Label, Media Tracks
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"The Sonata for Solo Viola has the look of a real tour de force for viola, utilising all its range and tonal possibilities." Peter Sulski
"Tara Guram’s “Sonata For Solo Viola” unfolds across 9 chapters of stirring, poetic, even haunting sounds that are never short on atmosphere and span plenty of intimate moments." Take Effect
"It was great working with Tara! Recently I recorded Tara’s Piano Sonata in three movements for my new solo CD with PARMA Recordings. I love the variety of harmonic language, creativity, deep emotional context, contrasting ideas, and very detailed score of Tara’s composition. Her Piano Sonata is a great combination of unique ideas and traditional elements. I believe Tara’s music would be a beautiful addition to any concert and I am looking forward to performing her Piano Sonata at my Carnegie Hall solo recital soon.
Dr. Anna Kislitsyna,
La Sonate pour piano de Tara Guram est une œuvre très colorée, et pas uniquement par les titres de ses mouvements, « Blue Andante », « Green Sunny Day » et « Black Finale ». Les deux premiers mouvements, très brefs, offrent cependant des couleurs très brillantes, avec parfois un aspect jazz très typique des États-Unis, mêlé de touches qui rappellent parfois certaines pièces de Ligeti, comme son étude Arc-en-ciel. Le troisième mouvement, bien plus long, a un côté beaucoup plus larmoyant, avec ses balancements d’accords dans les graves et sa mélodie modale.
Gabriel Navaridas, ComposerHer
Tara Guram's delightful Piano Sonata features blues and jazz gestures in its opening movement. It has the feel of a salon or silent film era accompaniment but with plenty of modern touches. It ends on a rather darker place with a closing funeral march.
Steven Kennedy, A Digital Catch Up
"Tara Guram's Requiem...imbued with a sense of poetry and lyricism...The overall architecture leaves a wonderful impression on the listener.
Alex Raineri, Loud Mouth
Tara's extraordinary ability to write in a particular register, for both instruments, creates a sound unique to this piece; it's a fascinating musical language and aesthetic and one that we've not encountered before. Sarah Waycott, flautist, Animo
A PARMA artist, Tara Guram’s composition style is idiomatic and unique but above all, instinctive and heartfelt. Ravello Records
Meet our Composer of the Week: Tara Guram, a musical storyteller whose melodies weave emotions and tales that resonate deep within the soul. Media Tracks
c. Tara Guram 2023