About

Tanya Dartson, born and raised in Central Asia, Kazakhstan started composing simple melodies already at the age of six and when she was seven her parents enrolled her into a classical piano performance program at a local music school. Having noticed Tanya’s gift, the teachers of the school recommended that she takes private composition lessons from a well-known composer at the time, Alexander Shevchenko. Several months after tutoring Tanya, the composer refused to accept money from her parents.

“The girl is very talented, it is my honor to teach her”-he told them.

Tanya attended the classical music school for seven years where she regularly performed works of famous classical composers and in addition, she was the only student at school who was invited to perform her own piano compositions at school concerts. Tanya also participated in numerous piano performance and composition competitions and was frequently awarded one of the top three places. Teachers remember her as a student who always played “by ear” and had an extraordinary gift for composing.

Outside of the private lessons that Tanya took from the composer for about a year when she was a child, she never formally studied composition or pursued music professionally until recently. In summer of 2012, Tanya decided to learn orchestration and took private lessons from a well-established New York-based composer, Douglas Gibson. He helped her to expand her technical and orchestration skills and in October 2012 she composed her first symphony orchestra composition “Escape from Planet Earth.” The composition inspired by Hurricane Sandy made it to the Finals of the world’s most prestigious International Composition Competition “Maurice Ravel” in Bergamo (Italy) in April 2015.

“Escape from Planet Earth,” has been selected as top 15 best symphony orchestra compositions worldwide out of thousands of submissions and has been featured on TV channel News 12 Brooklyn. Tanya was one of the youngest composers who made it to the final round, as well as the only female composer in the Symphony Orchestra category to be selected.
“Escape from Planet Earth” was a musical reflection about fragility and vulnerability of our treasured planet- says Tanya (Brooklyn News 12 TV Channel.)

In addition to her music education, Tanya also has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in International Affairs. She received a generous scholarship to pursue her Master’s degree program in New York based on her high scores, achievements, as well as work experience in international organizations and references from reputable foreign affairs specialists. Even though she graduated with honors, music has always been her primary passion, which she will continue to pursue.