Scholarship winner Jorden back for Rachmaninoff – JH News&Guide

Thanks to his international conducting career, Sir Donald Runnicles has, over his 20 years as music director for the Grand Teton Music Festival, brought to Jackson Hole scores of musicians he has worked with from throughout the United States, Berlin and Dresden, Scotland and, since 2019, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The soloist for this weekend’s GTMF orchestral concerts, however, is someone he met right here in Jackson.

Pianist Tanner Jorden, whom Runnicles and his fellow judges named the first-place winner of the 2021 Donald Runnicles Musical Arts Scholarship Competition, will join the Festival Orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1901) on Friday and Saturday in the Jackson Hole High School auditorium, the group’s temporary venue for its 65th season while Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village undergoes renovations.

Jorden and his violinist wife Caroline also will perform for the first house concert and first chamber music program of the 2026 season (see page 7D).

Born and raised in Billings, Montana, where he graduated from high school in 2021, Jorden started playing piano when he was 7 with a teacher, Dorothy Cromely, who he said emphasized artistry as much as technique and repertoire. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University last fall, where he won the School of Music Concerto Competition with his performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto in E-flat Major and now is pursuing a master’s degree at the Juilliard School in Manhattan.

Since 2015, Jorden has competed frequently in regional, national and international competitions, winning the Music Teachers National Association State Competition consecutively from 2016 to 2021 and the Northwest Regional Competition in 2018 and 2019. In 2023, he took second in MTNA’s Young Artist National Piano Competition that led to a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 with the Milwaukee Symphony. The Aspen Grove Trio, which he formed with his wife and fellow BYU alum cellist Nathan Cox, won the 2024 Music Teacher National Association’s Chamber Music Competition, and he has performed solo extensively through the region.

view Tanner’s performances this week

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