Tabea Debus & Tom Foster
Biography Tabea Debus & Tom Foster
Tabea Debus
Described by The Times as a charismatic virtuoso, Tabea Debus is constantly exploring the horizons of music for recorder and has performed widely across Europe, Asia, North and South America.
Tabea’s keen interest in contemporary music for recorder has led to numerous collaborations with composers throughout the UK and beyond. She has premiered new works at LSO Soundhub, at the Barbican Centre’s Sound Unbound and Baroque at the Edge festivals, worked with composers including Philip Cashian, Freya Waley-Cohen, Moritz Eggert and Alex Nante, and has appeared as soloist in contemporary recorder concertos with the WDR Rundfunkchor at the Funkhaus in Cologne and the English Chamber Orchestra at Cadogan Hall. In 2020 the recorder solo Diaries of the Early Worm by Gareth Moorcraft, which Tabea premiered and recorded, won the solo/duo category at the Ivors Academy Awards.
As a soloist and chamber musician Tabea regularly appears with La Serenissima and The English Concert, and joined the recorder quartet Palisander in 2023. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall, in Early Music Series in London, York and San Francisco, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Musica Antiqua Bolzano, Edinburgh International Festival, and many more. She is a regular guest on the BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Early Music Show, and has released seven solo discs to date.
Tabea was appointed recorder professor at the HMTM Hannover in 2024. Passionate about outreach work, she has led masterclasses at the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music, mdw Vienna, Chicago and Cambridge Universities. She has collaborated with Music Masters, Jackdaws Music Education Trust, and the RAM’s Open Academy, bringing music to children from all backgrounds In collaboration with other musicians, artists and actors she is constantly developing interdisciplinary projects, including the ‘Endo the Earthworm’ series, the music-art-game ‘soundshapes’, and play-along library ‘Continuo Lines'. Tabea has also been an adjudicator for the British Composer Awards (BASCA) and regularly joins the panel of the German youth music competition Jugend musiziert.
Awards include the CAG/Richard S. Weinert Award for Innovation in Classical Music, the soloist prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 1st prize at the Society of Recorder Players/Moeck International Solo Recorder Competition in London, as well as at the Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Hülsta Woodwinds International Competitions. In addition to being on the rosters of Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) and the Concert Artists Guild (CAG, New York), Tabea has been a City Music Foundation Artist, Handel House Talent and St John’s Smith Square Young Artist. She has also held scholarships from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.
Born in Würzburg, Germany, Tabea studied at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Prof. Michael Schneider and at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Pamela Thorby. Graduating with the Principal’s Prize, she went on to be appointed Meaker Fellow at the RAM for a year, and was elected Associate of the RAM (ARAM) in 2023.
