Christopher Tarnow Dipl Tonmeister / Recording Producer in Leipzig

As a Tonmeister, I have overseen more than a hundred classical album productions, including the acclaimed recordings of Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson for Deutsche Grammophon. My portfolio also features collaborations with artists such as tenor Daniel Behle, pianist Alice Sara Ott, and the Calmus Ensemble. Based in Leipzig, I travel worldwide with my own mobile recording equipment, bringing studio-grade excellence to wherever the music is made.
Awards
New York Times: Best Classical Recordings of 2023, 2024, 2025
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I earned my degree in Tonmeister studies at the Erich Thienhaus Institute (University of Music Detmold) and studied composition at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig under Reinhard Pfundt. Since then, my compositions have been performed frequently and have been featured on various labels. When I am not in the studio or a concert hall, I am at the piano practicing or composing.
I may be a Tonmeister by trade, but I am, first and foremost, a musician.
Additionally, we recorded an album with un-edited improvisations for the US indie label Butterscotch Records at Studio G, Brooklyn, NY.
The performance to the right took place during the “Klassik XL” gala concert, honoring the 2015 ECHO Klassik award winners—among them, Carolina herself. The story behind this appearance reflects the typical duality of my musical life: I spent the day supervising a chamber music production in Berlin, traveling directly from the recording session to the concert hall.
Our recording of the two three-movement sonatas, alongside two shorter Intermezzi for Theremin and Piano, was captured in the Mendelssohn-Saal of the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig and released on the label Genuin (the audio excerpt is from the first sonata of this recording).
The piano concerto incorporates a voice (Altus), setting excerpts from the biblical Song of Songs to music. The last movement, a slowly moving fugue, culminates into 28 hits of the same chord in the piano (instead of a cadenza). The world premiere was performed by pianist Hardy Rittner, the Noord Nederlands Orkest under the baton of Peter Kuhn, and Stefan Kahle (Altus). It was broadcast live on Dutch radio. Paradoxically, the day after the premiere, my path as a recording producer led me to supervise a recording of Haydn’s The Creation—a transition from mourning a life cut short to celebrating the dawn of existence that remains one of my most profound emotional experiences as a musician. The project was generously supported by Bayer Arts & Culture.
Based on Hermann Hesse’s poem of the same name, this work is part of a larger piano cycle centered on anti-war themes. While the poem refers to the aftermath of the Second World War, the composition addresses the tragedy of conflict from a broader perspective. The score includes a fully composed tenor part that remains intentionally silent—an ‘unsung’ lament as a symbol for loss. As a composer of a generation that has not experienced war, I felt that an audible vocal setting would be inappropriate; instead, the piano’s aleatoric tolling of bells fills this silence. A recording of the full piano cycle was released in 2023 by pianist Yeseul Moon on MDG along with music by Hartmann and Mishory. This however is a live recording of me playing the piece in concert.