About


Laureate of numerous piano competitions (“A. Rubinstein” (Paris), “The Muse” (Santorini), “Yakov Flier” (Moscow) International Piano Competitions, “Normandy European Piano Competition” (France), “Audience prize” holder of San Daniele International Piano Meeting, Mark Taratushkin performs successfully as soloist and as chamber musician in Russia and Europe-wide.

Born in Ukraine, where he started his musical education at the age of five, he moved to Moscow, where he soon was accepted to the Central Music School. Later he entered Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied in class of prof. N. Troull. Graduating from the Moscow Conservatory in 2013, the young pianist moved to Germany, where he continued his education first in class of prof. G. Zitterbart in HMTM Hannover, and later under the guidance of prof. K Hellwig at UdK Berlin, where he studies up to now.

During the last few years Taratushkin has been concentrating on performance of the German romantic music and on XXth century music among others. His interpretations of contemporary music was mentioned by the „Lutoslawski prize“ at „Normandy European Piano Competition“. Winning Israeli Music Competition of Tel-Hai he made a world premiere of pieces written by Israeli composer Moshe Zorman. His debut CD with works by Bartok and Prokofiev was released in March 2015 accompanied by concerts in Germany and Italy.

During his studies Taratushkin received master-classes and was guided by many renowned musicians: prof. Vincenzo Balzani, prof. Dmitry Bashkirov, prof. Leonel Morales, prof. Tomer Lev, prof. Kalle Randalu and Akiko Ebi among many others.

Mark Taratushkin is a scholarship holder of Swiss Piano Foundation “Clavarte”, “Live Music Now” e.V. Chamber Music Foundation, “Paul Hindemith” Foundtion, “Ad Infinitum” Foundation and “Ottilie-Selbach-Redslob” Foundation.

Reviews


"If you havent' heard the young Russian artist living in Berlin, you really missed something. The pianist impressed the public straight away with a brilliance and intensity of his performance of Bartoks' Suite "Out of Doors". Different facets, either at the martial beginning of "With drums and pipes", or later in the mysterious "Sounds of the night", were interpreted by Taratushkin effortlessly."

Westdeutsche Zeitung

October 19th, 2014

"Taratushkin fills every single tone with life. Everything fits together in an organic and natural way ... Brahms wrote his Paganini variations as exercise pieces for certain technical challenges, scales, thirds, sixths, octaves. In all this challenges Brahms went to the limits of performers capabilities. It seams that for Taratushkin this limits simply do not exist. The pieces are not exercises, but music, performed with energy and power ... Standing ovation for the young artist and the outstanding performance. One should definitely note down the name Mark Taratushkin"

Gerhard Raßner, Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine (HNA)

August 14th, 2018

"Mit dem aus der Ukraine stammenden Pianisten Mark Taratushkin hatte der Kulturring Straelen ein Ausnahmetalent in das europäische Übersetzerkollegium eingeladen ... Von einem hohen emotionalen Ausdrucksgehalt getragen, bewahrte Taratushkins Interpretation dem Werk dabei ein reiches, beinahe orchestrales Ausdrucksspektrum, das sich in einer geballten Klangdichte ausdrückte. Das desillusionierte "Sarkasmen" op. 17 spielte er mit klarem, kernigem, leicht trockenem Anschlag und überzeugte mit seiner perfekten Homogenität sowohl im Forte wie im lyrisch verträumten Piano. Viel Beifall für einen Vortrag mit höchster Klavierkultur."

Rheinische Post

October 21st, 2014

"The young Russian pianist Mark Taratushkin has a rare gift: a completely unobtrusive superior virtuosity that is totally at the service of musical expression. If you, for example, listen to his performance of the Paganini Variations of Johannes Brahms, you hear only a great music, but never the technical difficulties of this extraordinary challenging piece.

Mark Taratushkin is on the way to greatest pianists of the young generation."

Gerrit Zitterbart

April 13th, 2015

"Mr. Taratushkin is a wonderful pianist, with a very established knowledge of style and form. He has a good ear for contemporary music and he understands very well the different approaches to piano playing in modern music.”

Prof. Moshe Zorman

August 15th, 2014

"This was a truly breathtaking performance in terms of tone, sonority, power and contrast of character... fabulous account of one of the most difficult works in the keyboard literature and one of the finest I have heard for many years... A true individualist of tremendous talent”

Michael Moran

November 8th, 2013