Emma Taggart

2017 Young Artist Competition Winner

Emma Taggart is a fourteen-year-old classically trained pianist who is on her way to becoming a world renowned concert pianist. She has already won several competitions, both locally and internationally, taken master classes with legendary pianists, such as Nelita True and Oxana Yablonskaya, attended festivals in both the United States and Europe, and played with several orchestras.

Emma started lessons at age four with Mary Carloni. After a year, she was referred on toJuilliard graduate, Dr. Reid Smith, with whom she currently studies.

Emma gave her first solo recital at the age of six. She has won several awards and competitions, including being chosen as a Minnesota Public Radio Featured Artist in the MN Varsity Competition (2017), co-winner of the Dakota Valley Symphony Concerto and Aria Competition (2017), 1st place in the Thursday Musical competition (2016), 1st place in the Great Composers International Competition (2016), 1st place in the MN State Fair Talent Competition (2015), 1st place in the North Star Concerto Competition (2013), 1st place (with a unanimous decision by the jury) in the Maria Herrero International Piano Competition in Granada, Spain (2012), 2nd place in the MN State Fair Talent Competition (2011), Honorable Mention in the Schubert Club Competition (2016), a finalist in the Young People's Symphony Concert Association Competition (2016), Honorable Mention in the Thursday Musical Competition (2015), and 2nd place in the MN State Fair Talent Competition (2011). She is a two-time recipient of the Schubert Club Special Awards Grant (2016 and 2015). She has also received the Wildwood Series Young Artist Award (2013), the Norma, Italy International Music Festival Award (2011), and the Varallo, Italy International Piano Festival Performance Award (2010).

In the spring of 2013, she made her orchestral debut with the Minnetonka Orchestra, playing Mozart's Concerto No. 23 in A Major. Emma attended the Accademia Tadini International Music Festival in Lovere, Italy, in the summer of 2014. At the festival, she played the 2nd and 3rd movements of Beethoven's Concerto No. 1 with members of the Milan Chamber Orchestra. In the summer of 2015, she was invited to take lessons, master classes and perform at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University for three weeks with faculty from around the country. She was one of three chosen to perform in a master class with Nelita True. Most recently, Emma studied this past summer at Oberlin Conservatory.

In October of 2016, Emma was a guest performer at Orchestra Hall as part of a benefit concert given by Sheila E., Prince’s former drummer and fiancée. Emma is extremely honored to be a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award (2016) which is accompanied by a $10,000 scholarship. In conjunction with this, she and her ten-year-old brother, Jacob Taggart, performed at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts as a duo on the nationally syndicated radio show, From The Top, in November, 2016.

For more information about Emma, please visit www.taggartpiano.com.