Biography
George Tarlton’s musical career began as a chorister with the South London-based choir ‘Libera’ in 2000-2004, who regularly made television appearances (BBC Songs of Praise, This is your Life, Classical Brit Awards), recordings ('Luminosa' Warner Classics, 'Free' EMI Classics) and concerts across the country and abroad.
Guitar-playing later became an all-consuming passion which led to his studies with Robert Brightmore and David Miller as a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he graduated with first-class honours in 2015.
George has performed in festivals across the UK, mainland Europe, China and the US with notable venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, Stanford University, Shanghai Oriental arts Centre and Tianjin Grand theatre. He has made multiple appearances on BBC Radio 3 and has been praised by Sean Rafferty MBE (Radio 3 'In Tune') as having 'the touch'. In November 2019, George won first prize in the London International Guitar Competition resulting in two performances in London's Kings Place. George was also awarded a place on the 2019/20 Eurostrings Artist Program.
George is a founding member of the Mela Guitar Quartet who’s win at the Guitar Foundation of America’s 2023 International Ensemble Competition won them a tour of North America earlier this year. Gramophone described the Mela quartet as having “collective technical brilliance and preternatural ensemble” in their recent Naxos release, ‘The Complete Quartet works’ of Anthony Burgess. Their most recent album ‘Overtures & Dances’ is out now on the Dutch label TRPTK.