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The Serbian-born American pianist, Tatjana Rankovich, holds Bachelors degree from the Academy of Music in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School, where she also won the Judelson Piano Award, Gina Bachauer Scholarship and a Teaching Fellowship Grant. She studied with Arbo Valdma (Belgrade, Novi Sad), Clifton Matthews (Sion, Switzerland and North Carolina School of the Arts), Joseph Raieff (Juilliard) and Benjamin Kaplan (London). She is a A laureate of many competitions.
Described by The New York Times as an "astonishingly good pianist", Tatjana Rankovich is committed to continuously expanding the boundaries of the traditional repertoire, constantly searching for and discovering new contemporary music and devoting her interest to performing rarely heard works of the past. An innate instinct to create a spectrum of different styles, old and new, known and unknown, is the very essence of her as an artist and it takes place with every one of her concerts. She is the first pianist ever to play the First, Second and Third Piano Concertos of Nicolas Flagello, recording them with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the Slovak Philharmonic, which were released to unanimous praise and chosen for one of the five "best of the year" recordings in 1996, 1999 and 2005, by Fanfare Magazine. These premiere recordings were described as "splendid" and "superb." In his review (Classical Net, 2008), of the Naxos/Flagello Piano Concerto CD, Steve Schwartz writes: "The concerto holds no terrors for Serbian pianist Tatjana Rankovich, one of my favorite performers, who routinely takes risks on unknown repertoire. She undoubtedly knows like the back of her well-muscled hand the Russian school of piano writing Flagello makes use of. She plays with fiery power. At the end of the recording I, without giving it a thought, stood up. Imagine what she would do to a live audience."
Tatjana Rankovich has performed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Central and South America and as a guest soloist many orchestras worldwide. In 2002 and again in 2006, as a recipient of the Fulbright Grant and sponsored by the US State Department, she appeared in recitals throughout Serbia and Montenegro and as a Cultural Ambassador gave master classes at the Belgrade Conservatory. She is one of the main artists performing annually at the New York Contemporary Festival "Keys To The Future", where she received only lavish praise for her many premiere performances. In the summer of 2008, Tatjana Rankovich was a recipient of the prestigious State Award, "Golden Badge", which is awarded annually by the Serbian Ministry of Diaspora in Belgrade, Serbia.
Tatjana Rankovich has recorded several acclaimed discs for Phoenix USA, Naxos, Albany, Artek, Dezil, Citadel, and most recently (released in 2010), a highly praised 3-disk set of live recordings for IBOX. The review by Jerry Dubins of Fanfare Magazine (October, 2010) reads: "My long time favorite recording (of the Shostakovich Piano Concerto #1) has been the one with Argerich… But I think this version with Rankovich now takes pride of place. It"s quite stunning…"
Besides her busy performing and teaching career Tatjana Rankovich is affiliated with a non-profit organization Performance Wellness, which is dedicated to treating many of the psychological and behavioral problems that afflict musicians and other performers. As a certified Performance Wellness Trainer, she often leads Performance Wellness seminars and workshops at colleges and universities worldwide.
Tatjana Rankovich has adjudicated at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in NYC. Recently, she has joined a distinguished faculty, at a prestigious InterHarmony Summer Music Festival in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany, where she will be teaching and performing in August of 2011. As a member of The Piano Teachers Congress of New York, Rankovich is the chairperson for the 20th and 21st Century Music Festival for young pianists and composers. She resides in New York City, where she is presently on the piano faculty in the Preparatory Division at the Mannes College of Music. |
