Photo by Kioku

PIANIST, PERFORMER, AND PHOTOGRAPHER.

Tyler Hayford is an emerging young pianist, performer, and avid photographer, hailed by the press as “one of those young epitomes of brilliance and early success” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

In 2014, Tyler won top prizes in the 28th Annual Celia Mendez Young Pianists Beethoven Competition, the Pacific Musical Society Piano Competition, and was inducted into the MTAC Young Artist Guild. In the same year he made his professional debut in a solo benefit recital sponsored by Distinguished Artist Series for World Vision International Charities, which was telecast and achieved critical acclaim. Subsequently, he was a guest artist at the Bear Valley Music Festival, a featured artist in the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival’s “Emerging Artists” concert series, and has continued to perform throughout California since.

Earlier in his formative years, Tyler first appeared as a soloist at the Carmel Bach Festival at the age of 10, and after winning the Santa Cruz Youth Symphony Concerto Competition, made his concerto debut with them at the age of 14.

Tyler received a BM in Piano Performance and Musical Arts, and MM in Piano Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music. Beyond his studies at Eastman, Tyler has received scholarships to participate at the Meadowmount School of Music, the Colburn Academy Piano Festival, California Summer Music, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival. He has performed in masterclasses with Angela Hewitt, Matti Raekallio, and Hung-Kuan Chen, among others. He was also the recipient from 2017-2018 of a Nadenstedt YAG College Music Study Scholarship. Before working under the tutelage of Professors Natalya Antonova and Douglas Humpherys at the Eastman School of Music, Tyler previously studied piano with Hans Boepple, and piano and pipe organ with Vlada Volkova Moran. He served as the organist of Messiah Lutheran Church in Santa Cruz from 2013-2015, at Penn Yan First Baptist Church from 2018-2019, and has been music director at Lakeville United Church of Christ since 2020.

In his current work as a collaborative artist, Tyler has an extensive repertoire of instrumental and vocal music, and specializes in sight reading and improvisation in both classical and non-classical styles.

When Tyler isn’t at the piano, he can be found capturing the subtleties of his surroundings with his camera. The breadth of his professional work includes real estate, drone, portrait, concert, and commercial product photography, while his personal work is primarily engaged in a formalistic documentation of man-altered landscapes and urban spaces.