Founder of Timani
Tina Margareta Nilssen
Tina is a pianist, lecturer, author of “Unleashing The Potential Of The Musicians’ Body”, the founder of the Musicians’ Health and Movement Institute (MHMI) and the creator of the movement system, Timani, which develops a deep understanding of the body to support instrumental and singing technique and musical performance.
Since 2007, Tina has taught Timani to more than 4000 of musicians from all over the world. At the MHMI, she established a 3-year, part-time International Timani Certification Course for professional musicians and music teachers in which has been running since 2013.
Tina’s background in anatomy and movement comes from her studies as a Kinetic Control Movement Therapist (UK), Kinesthäsie for pianists (UdK), personal trainer (Norwegian Sports and Science Academy), massage therapist (Axelsons) and advanced certified yoga teacher – amongst other.
Her international teaching career has brought her to give workshops at all Norwegian tertiary music education institutions and amongst other the Juilliard School in New York, Thornton School of Music, USC and Colburn in Los Angeles, UC Irvine, Royal College of Music in London, Amsterdam Music Conservatory, Hanns Eisler in Berlin, YST Conservatory in Singapore, Musik Akademie Basel, The University of Arts in Bern, The Royal Danish Music Academy in Copenhagen and for orchestras such as Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Swedish Orchestra in Stockholm as well as professional chamber music groups, students at universities in many countries, music school teachers and soloists.
In addition to her teaching commitments, she’s currently doing a PhD at the Centre of Physiology at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she’s studying the movement coordination of orchestral players.
As a pianist she began her university studies at NTNU Institute of Music with Jørgen Larsen in 1996. After graduating with a BA from Barratt Due Music Institute (Prof. Jiri Hlinka) in 2001, she took a MA at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo (Prof. Jens Harald Bratlie) with a year’s Erasmus exchange program at the University of Arts in Berlin (Prof. Heide Görtz), finishing this in 2005.
Tina has performed solo and duet recitals in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, England, Moscow, Italy, and the USA amongst other venues. As a soloist, she has performed piano concertos by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, and Gershwin and played at numerous music festivals and concert series. She has released four critically-acclaimed recordings (2L) – three with the Dena Piano Duo and one solo recording.
Tina has received a number of grants and awards including the two-year Norwegian artist’s working grant from the Norwegian Arts Council, Jansons Fund, RWE-Dea, and various grants from the Norwegian Fund for Performing Artists.
“She both caresses the keys, and when needed bangs loose at them as though it were between life and death. It is tremendously well played, and plain out impossible not to be carried away. I sometimes use piano music as something relaxing in the background, but even in the calm places in the second movement of Appassionata, Tina Margareta Nilssen keeps my full attention.”
“It is her exquisite and perfectly measured playing that produces such a sense of detached time and space. Her playing is effortless, masterful and lush. It’s easy to get lost in the notes and forget all about the troubles in the world.”
— Marc Phillips, The Vinyl Anachronist