Tamar Halperin

Keyboardist Tamar Halperin is a versatile artist who plays harpsichord and piano and has performed both classical music and jazz on both instruments. She is married to famed countertenor <a href="spotify:artist:2LnE7uKchgVW2Uv7vzwixZ">Andreas Scholl</a>, with whom she performs and records.

Halperin was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1976. At first, she had dreams of a career as a tennis player, but she switched to music as a student at Tel Aviv University. She became interested in the historical performance movement and went on for harpsichord studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland. Halperin received a PhD from the Juilliard School in New York, studying there with support from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and writing a dissertation on the music of <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a>. Several important prizes helped launch Halperin's career, including the Ehrenpreis of the Van Vlaanderen Musica Antiqua Brugge Competition in 2004 and the Presser Award stipend for graduate study the following year. She appears as both a recitalist and a concerto soloist. At the Rheingau Music Festival in 2011, she played a <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a> recital at the Christophoruskirche in Wiesbaden-Schierstein, and she has performed as harpsichordist-leader with the Podium Festival Orchestra, the <a href="spotify:artist:2Oz3z7PPQUMU2KNYgcO1sA">English Concert</a>, and the Cape Town String Exchange Ensemble.

Halperin has been active as a jazz pianist as well. She has toured widely with the <a href="spotify:artist:2FAcVqZcWm8KxV9PoKRRqR">hr-Bigband</a> (the jazz band of the Hessischer Rundfunk radio network), and she performs with jazz pianist <a href="spotify:artist:7MbjIv3XpMc2ciNcoWHFcS">Michael Wollny</a>; with <a href="spotify:artist:7MbjIv3XpMc2ciNcoWHFcS">Wollny</a>, she has played jazz on harpsichord and celesta as well as piano and recorded two award-winning albums, Wunderkammer and Wunderkammer XXL. Her classical recordings include Satie (2016), on which she played that composer's music on the piano, harpsichord, Hammond organ, and the Wurlitzer electric piano.

Halperin is especially widely known for her performances and recordings with her husband, superstar countertenor <a href="spotify:artist:2LnE7uKchgVW2Uv7vzwixZ">Andreas Scholl</a>. The pair has released several recordings, including Wanderer (2012), Family Album (2018), and the 20th century recital Twilight People (2019). She is also a composer and arranger who has experimented with electronic music.