Gabriel Tacchino

Classical pianist and teacher Gabriel Tacchino was born on April 4, 1934, in Cannes, France. He attended the Paris Conservatoire between 1947 and 1953 and became the only student to study piano under composer Francis Poulenc. He also studied under Jean Batalla, Jacques February, and Marguerite Long. Gabriel Tacchino came to prominence after winning several prizes including First Prize at the Viotti Competition (1953), Second Prize at the Ferruccio Busoni Competition (1954), joint Second Prize at the Geneva Competition (1955), First Prize at the Casella International Competition (1956), and Fourth Prize at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition (1957). He got his big break when Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan invited him to play with various orchestras. Gabriel Tacchino also worked with other conductors including Pierre Monteux, Erich Leinsdorf, Jascha Horenstein, Paul Paray, Georges Prêtre, and Michel Plasson. He performed with many orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, the English Chamber Orchestra, and more. He made his US debut in 1962 when he performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a recording artist, Gabriel Tacchino paid tribute to his master Poulenc and was the first to record all of his piano music. Other acclaimed recordings include Récital : Bach - Mozart- Liszt (1959), Rachmaninoff: Concerto pour Piano et Orchestre No. 2 (1960), Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (1965), Schumann : Quintette pour Piano & Cordes - Quatuor à Cordes (1997), and Saint-Saëns: Complete Piano Concertos (2014). Gabriel Tacchino taught at the Paris Conservatoire from 1975 to 1994 and would go on to teach at the University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo, Japan), the Mozarteum University (Salzburg, Austria), and the Schola Cantorum (Paris, France). He was the founder of the Les Nuits musicales du Suquet festival in Cannes in 1975 and remained involved until 2011. The final album recorded during his lifetime was 2017’s Poulenc: Piano Melodies. Gabriel Tacchino died on January 29, 2023, at the age of 88.

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