Born in Fort McMurray, Alberta, violist and violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch performs contemporary jazz, classical music, and many things in between. Based in New York City since 2004, she has been named "Best New Talent" by All About Jazz, while Time Out New York identified her as the Juilliard-trained violist whos been tearing up the scene.Tanyas debut recording with her quartet Hut Five was hailed by the Montreal Gazette as an exceptional recording, one of the more engaging recordings heard in some time and was garnished with a number of stars by DownBeat magazine. Her latest recording, Heart Mountain, with pianist Myra Melford, was released in May 2007 to international acclaim, topping a number of critics' "Best of 2007" lists and garnering French jazz magzine Jazzman's prestigious "Choc" award.Tanya has performed in Europe and North America with a diverse range of artists including Mark Turner, Benoît Delbecq, Mark Helias, Dominique Pifarély, Andy Laster, Tom Rainey, Ernst Reijseger, Mat Maneri, and the Turtle Island String Quartet, Martin Hayes, John Cage and Shujaat Husain Khan. She has travelled frequently to India where she has studied Karnatic music with violinist Lalgudi G. J. R. Krishnan and veena player Karaikudi S. Subramanian while conducting doctoral dissertation research on jazz exotica.Tanya is Assistant Chair of the department of Creative Improvisation at Bostons New England Conservatory, and is a regular instructor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London UK and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag NL. She frequently presents workshops on improvisation throughout Europe and North America. She is a founding member of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a collective of ten independent bandleaders based in New York City. She is also the Canadian representative to the International Association of Schools of Jazz, a founding member of the Jazz String Caucus of the International Association for Jazz Education, and the director of the Douglass Street Music Collective, a musician-run performance and space in Brooklyn.