"...spontaneous and heartfelt music making which seemed to leave the audience exalted."
San Francisco Classical Voice

"Since Pablo Casals discovered the Bach unaccompanied Cello Suites in 1920....then studied them for decades on the modern cello...for every cellist the Suites loom as a technical and emotional challenge and a joy to play.  Tomkins offered an electric feeling of musical discovery - using a 1798 Lockey Hill Baroque cello and a steely confidence.  Both served to shed much light on the suites.  Tomkins proved the baroque cello worthy of delivering many shadings and finely rendered phrases with florid inspiration and heartfelt expression."  Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee, 2009

All six solo Bach Suites for cello will be performed over two amazing Sundays on a Baroque cello from 1798 with gut strings. The 6th Suite will be performed on the rarely heard 5-string cello as Bach intended it to be played. For every cellist, the Bach Suites are considered the most challenging, but most inspiring repertoire to perform. They require the most interpretive skill on the part of the performer, and it is also quite physically and mentally intense.

NOTE from Tanya:
It is every cellist's dream to play Bach's Unaccompanied Suites for Cello.  The Suites are daunting in every respect.  it is not often that a single string player is asked to provide all of the rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, color and character in a piece, and it is perhaps the ultimate challenge for a solo performer.  These pieces are musically and technically demanding; they require the player to make a huge number of decisions every moment.  it is impossible to settle on any single way of playing a Bach Suite:  it is the job of the performer to remain continually open to all possibilities.  In this way, the Suites are an opportunity for improvisation - not so much on the notes themselves, but on their timing and inflection.  I would like to invite you to take part in my explorations of this sublime music. 

Tanya Tomkins, a virtuoso on both the Baroque and modern cello, is equally at home playing a Bach cello suite in an intimate house concert or anchoring the cello section of the internationally renowned Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra on concert stages around the world. NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands) describes her as “a cellist with a very special and unusual intensity,” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer calls her "a performer who combines an intense dramatic fire with Apollonian poise.”
Tomkins studied in the Netherlands with renowned cellist and early music specialist Anner Bylsma. She received her Soloist Diploma from The Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague. Living in Europe for 14 years, she immersed herself in the study of early music and particularly music of the Baroque period. She founded the Trio d'Amsterdam, which toured extensively throughout Europe and subsequently made its New York debut at the Frick Collection.
In 2001 Tomkins won the Erwin Bodky Competition for early music soloists in Boston; she was the first cellist to be awarded the prize. As a performer of Baroque music, Tomkins serves as co-principal cellist of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. She has been featured as soloist with Philharmonia Baroque; American Bach Soloists; the Oregon Bach Festival; the Mozart Festival in San Luis Obispo, California; at an early music festival in Paradise, Montana with acclaimed English Baroque violinist Monica Huggett; and at the Göttingen Handel Festival.
Immersion in early music was not Tomkins's exclusive focus, however, and, like her teacher Bylsma, she did not neglect the repertoire for the modern cello. She became equally fluent in this music and toured as a soloist and as a member of the Euridice String Quartet and the SoLaRe Trio.
As an active recitalist and chamber musician on the modern cello, Tomkins has appeared to critical acclaim throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States. She has performed at major concert halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Recital Hall, New York City’s Lincoln Center as part of the “Great Performances” series, and the 92nd Street Y for the "Meet the Virtuoso" series, also in New York City. Music festival appearances include the Moab Music Festival in Moab, Utah and Music in the Vineyards in Napa, California, and the Umeå Chamber Music Festival in Umeå, Sweden.
As part of the Zivian-Tomkins Duo, Tomkins collaborates with pianist and fortepianist Eric Zivian on both modern and original instruments, and she is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio with Eric Zivian and violinist Monica Huggett.

Tanya is currently on faculty at the American Bach Soloists Summer Academy and San Jose State University.