We are excited to welcome pianist Tamara Smolyar to the role of resident mentor on Season 1 of The Talent in 2024!

“…Tamara Smolyar, an interpreter of great virtuosity, the suppleness, elegance and flexibility of tone …”  ( Muzica, Romania), “…technically brilliant ….”(Mercury, Australia)

Tamara Smolyar, an internationally – acclaimed pianist, chamber musician and pedagogue, comes from a musical family, one which spans over four generations. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, she began her formal piano lessons at the age of four and gave her first public performance at seven. By seventeen she had won a number of national competitions and selections for prestigious gala concerts for the Soviet Government. In the former USSR, she studied with renowned Russian pianists and pedagogues such as Оlga Orlova (herself a pupil of Konstantin Mikhailov), Igor Ryabov (a pupil of Yakov Zak), Eugeniy Rzhanov (a pupil of Yakov Flier) and Yuri Lotakov (a pupil of VsevolodTopilin). She graduated from the Kiev State College of Music and the Kiev State Conservatorium of Music with first-class honours. She has since participated in master-classes with a number of world-famous pianists, among them Lazar Berman, Tatiana Kravchenko, Eugene List, Eugeniy Malinin, Aleksey Nasedkin, Vladimir Neilson, Tatiana Nikolaeva, Vyacheslav Sechkin and Vsevolod Topilin. Having emigrated to Australia in 1990, in 1994 she gained her Master in Music (Performance) from the University of Melbourne, where she studied with Alexander Semetsky (a pupil of Emil Gilels) and Ronald Farren-Price (a pupil of Claudio Arrau).In 2019,Tamara gained PhD in Music Performance from Monash University, Australia.

Tamara was a winner of the National Chamber Music Competition in the USSR and was awarded the title of Best Accompanist and Chamber Musician of Ukraine and USSR. She has made numerous radio and TV recordings for national and international broadcasters, commercial recordings on labels which include Cantor Productions, Move, Schimmel International Artists Collection ,Vox Australis and Toccata Classics. Her solo recitals, concerto and chamber-music performances as well as her activities in master-classes and on competition juries have taken her to many prominent venues across three continents-former USSR, Romania, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. She has played with internationally renowned musicians and conductors from Australia, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, UK and the USA. 

A number of composers (Tony Gould, Jane Hammond, Alla Pavlova, Noel Fidge, Jaya Suprana, Anatoly Dokumentov, Anthony Halliday,Thomas Reiner, Iulia Cibisescu-Duran,Kenji Fujimura, Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea) have written music for her as a soloist and a chamber music performer. In 1999 she founded the Duo Mélange with renowned violinist Ivana Tomaskova. 

From 1994-2018, Tamara Smolyar was a Senior Lecturer in Music Performance, Head of Piano at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, Melbourne. As respected pedagogue, she has been fostering and developing the talents of the musicians under her tutelage to a high standard of performance. The success of her approach is evidenced by the fact that a number ofTamara’s former students become winners of national and international competitions and now hold positions as pianists and teachers both nationally and internationally. Currently, Tamara is a Piano staff member at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, Australia.

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