Tamara Poddubnaya was already acclaimed in her native Georgia, when, at age 15, she went to study at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, from which she received her doctorate in piano performance with distinction in 1976. One of the Continent’s finest keyboard artists and a much-sought-after teacher, Prof. Poddubnaya frequently serves on juries of international piano competitions and keeps a busy schedule, teaching and performing in Europe and the United States, where she is Professor and Head of the Piano Department at the Long Island Conservatory of Music. A co-founder of the Portland Conservatory’s International Piano Festival in 2004, she brought Music without Borders to the Gould Academy campus in Bethel in 2007.