Biography

Dr. Tamara McCoy began her piano studies at the age of five in her home-town of Anchorage, Alaska. She is a prize winner in several piano competitions, including the Alaska Yamaha State Piano Competition, Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Piano Competition and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. Tamara has also won several prizes for composition, including first prize in the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition for her Intermezzo for Piano and Orchestra, which she later performed with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Tamara was a featured composer, performer, and collaborator on the Lullaby Celebration Concert at Carnegie Hall, in New York. 

Tamara attended the University of Alaska Anchorage for her first year of college, in which she received a full scholarship for outstanding performance. She received her Bachelors degree in Piano Performance at Radford University as well as the MTNA STAR award for outstanding teaching ability. Tamara obtained her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Piano Performance at the University of Kentucky. She taught for three years at the University of Kentucky while acting as Head of Faculty at the Music Institute of Lexington. Tamara also served as Assistant Professor of Music on the faculty at the University of Pikeville, where she was voted KMEA District 9 College/University Teacher of the Year for 2008. She has studied and performed internationally in Russia, the Czech Republic, Brazil, and the UK, where she gave her London debut. Tamara was invited to teach and perform at the Annual International Piano Festival of the City of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil in the summers of 2009 and 2010. In 2015, Tamara was awarded an Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation of Alaska along with a grant to concertize in Alaska and England, where she made her debut in London and at Oxford University. She was also invited to perform and conduct at the 2016 and 2017 “Classical Minds” Festival & Competition in Houston, Texas. In 2021, Tamara was awarded an Adaptation and Innovation performance grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts to facilitate the Candido & McCoy Violin/Piano Duo's Alaskan tour. In 2022 she was awarded a Rasmuson Foundation Fellowship. 

Vocally, Tamara has worked with a broad spectrum of styles. She has sung folk music for most of her life and performed in numerous folk festivals from the age of 4. Tamara started singing the blues in her late teens and eventually branched out to rock and progressive heavy metal music for approximately a decade. In 2007, Tamara began her studies as a classical vocalist. In addition to solo and chamber performance, Tamara has sung with the Anchorage Concert Chorus, the Anchorage Opera Chorus, and the folk trio The Starling Sisters. She currently sings with Bel Canto Alaska, Duo Amiche, Radical Arts for Women, and the Candido & McCoy Duo. In 2018, Tamara won first place in both the NATS State and Regional Northwest Adult Avocational Voice Auditions. In 2015 she was asked to annually collaborate and record on the Hiland Mountain Lullaby Project, a project in partnership with the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute. 

Tamara teaches at Alaska Pacific University, University of Alaska Anchorage, maintains a private studio, and serves as music director at Anchorage Lutheran Church, where she produces the Anchorage Lutheran Concert Series. She is certified to teach the Suzuki Piano method in addition to traditional methods. She also holds certification in several levels of the early childhood music program, Musikgarten. Her teaching background includes private/applied piano, beginning and intermediate voice, concert choir, class/functional piano, early childhood music, classical & rock and roll music appreciation, music theory, world music, piano pedagogy, and piano ensemble.