Thalia Myers has earned an international reputation as an exceptional pianist of wide-ranging musical sympathies. Her repertoire and solo recordings, most recently on the Metronome, NMC and Usk labels, encompass music from the eighteenth century to the present and include four albums of contemporary works for solo piano. As a soloist, she is dedicated equally to disseminating new works and reviving neglected older repertoire and she has performed in over thirty countries.
A lifelong champion of new music, she has commissioned numerous works, given many first performances and première broadcasts of British works throughout the world. Composers who have written new works for her include David Bedford, Kim Helweg, Alun Hoddinott, Gabriel Jackson, Elisabeth Lutyens, Jeremy Dale Roberts, Edwin Roxburgh, Timothy Salter and Howard Skempton.
Born in the West of England, Thalia Myers received her musical education at the Royal College of Music, London, where she was a pupil of Cyril Smith. She later studied with Ilona Kabos and Peter Feuchtwanger. Her widespread teaching experience has incorporated working with students (Royal Holloway, University of London, where she taught for many years) children (Royal College of Music Junior Department) and professional pianists. She gives master classes and lecture recitals in the UK and overseas.
Her combined interests in contemporary music, music education and the promotion of amateur music making led her to commission the first of the award-winning Spectrum anthologies of short, musically uncompromising, technically accessible piano pieces in 1995. Published in 1996 by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, this was followed by Spectrum 2 (1999), Spectrum 3 (2001) and Spectrum 4 (2005). In 2000, collaborating with the Royal College of Music Junior Department, Bath Spa University College and COMA (contemporary music-making for amateurs) she commissioned the Chamber Music Exchange, works of similar purpose for piano trio, string quartet and wind quintet. The Chamber Music Exchange is published by the British Music Information Centre.
Thalia Myers’ recording of Philip Cashian’s Six Pieces after Paintings by Ben Hartley has recently been made available, together with the score, as a free download at the Ben Hartley website. Activities during 2009-2010 include recording Spectrum for Violin with Alexandra Wood, preparing Spectrum for Piano Duet, and recording music by Patrick Nunn for piano and soundtrack based on plasma wave data recorded by NASA spacecraft. In addition, she will work on projects with composition students at the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music in London and serve on juries of international competitions for pianists and composers in the UK and overseas.
January 2009