About

Sam “FLOWERS” Tannenbaum is a composer, pianist and music educator. He grew up in a family of musicians - his mother was a composer and music teacher, his father a singer and his grandmother a piano teacher and accompanist to name only a few immediate examples. Whilst growing up in Bonn, Germany; Louisiana, USA and Cambridge, UK the development of musicality was as fundamental a part of his education as literacy and numeracy.

Since graduating from University of York in 2009 with an honours degree in music (specialising in piano performance and composition) and completing his certificate in piano pedagogy with the European Piano Teachers Association, he has taught privately in Cambridge, London and Brighton; worked as an A-level Music and Performing Arts teacher at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College and was employed as a piano teacher at Roedean School, whilst always maintaining his own private client base and being involved in various other music projects as a pianist, musical director and arranger. Alongside his teaching he has also performed many classical recitals as a solo pianist and has actively sought out non classical genres of music including electronic dance music, hip hop, jazz, afrobeat, pop, mo-town, folk, musical theatre, experimental performance art. All of these have contributed to his musical vocabulary as a composer and songwriter, along side his considerable classical influences, particularly 20th century French, Russian and American composers.

After a significant career as a teacher FLOWERS decided to become the student again and returned to education. He graduated with a masters in composition (distinction) from The Royal Northern College of Music, in 2021, where he received entrance scholarships including one from the Radcliffe Trust and was awarded the 2020 Gold Medal award as well as the 2021 Patricia Cunliffe Prize in Composition. During his time there he received 1-to-1 tuition from Paul Patterson, Adam Gorb, Emily Howard and Rodrigo Constanzo and received two commissions from the RNCM Sinfonietta and collaborated with Ensemble Recherche who performed his piece, Echo Chamber.

Since graduating FLOWERS has worked at Circlesong School with Bobby McFerrin in Berklee, California; He has provided live improvised music in movement classes for people with parkinson’s disease; and now works as a freelance composer and music educator. He set up his own teaching practice, but also teaches secondary schools and does project based work with RNCM’s outreach and young artists programme.

You can access some of his music here, both in score form as well as recordings, as well as some recording of piano recitals from his York University days. Do get in touch with him if you want to hear more of his stuff, or if you want lessons, or if you have any other inquiries. He’s always up for a commission or discussing a potential collaboration. Also, please do get in touch if you want to access any of his mother, Kate Waring’s, catalogue of compositions.

flowerstannenbaum@gmail.com