Early years

Talmor grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, where he began piano lessons at the age of 5 at the local conservatory. He met virtuoso pianist Martha Argerich in his teens who exposed him to a world of music and musicians which helped shape his musical upbringing both as an instrumentalist and as a composer.
Talmor discovered the saxophone while attending high school in the US in 1987. Back in Switzerland, he devoted himself to this instrument while briefly studying musicology and philosophy at the University of Geneva. He also studied composition with Russian pianist and composer Alexander Rabinovitch.
In 1989, he met alto saxophonist Lee Konitz at a recording session. Lee Konitz would prove pivotal in Ohad Talmor's career, mentoring him closely for years to come. Eventually Talmor became one of Lee Konitz's privileged musical partner, resulting in 8 records and over 200 concerts worldwide.[1] From 1990 to 1995, Talmor was deeply involved in the European Jazz scene, leading his own quartet or quintet which featured American trombonist Glenn Ferris. During this time, he collaborated with many of Europe's leading musicians including Joachim Kühn, Matthieu Michel, Benoit Delbecq.
In 1994 and 1995 he toured Europe with Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow and different large ensembles (including string quartet ) featuring music he had composed.

Talmor eventually moved to New York in 1995 getting a Composition degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 1997.

Present day

Talmor lives in Brooklyn, New York. He leads his own projects, including "Back to the Land", a quartet featuring Chris Tordini and Eric McPherson with guests pianists Leo Genovese, David Virelles or vibraphonist Joel Ross, "Newsreel", a Sextet featuring Dan Weiss, Jacob Sacks, Miles Okazaki, Shane Endsley and Matt Pavolka and a "Trio", with Miles Okazaki and Dan Weiss,. The group's original repertoire focuses on short forms with highly interactive rhythmic studies.
Talmor's other projects include: Steve Swallow/Ohad Talmor/Adam Nussbaum Trio
Mass Transformation, a Nonet focusing on the Music of Anton Bruckner and featuring Austria's Spring String 4tet, singer Judith Berkson, Pete McCann, Shane Endsley, Mark Ferber.
Since 2004, he has been a devoted student of Hindustani music, playing the bansuri under the guidance of virtuoso flutist Steve Gorn.
Talmor is involved with the bustling Brooklyn jazz scene, performing regularly with Jason Moran, Joshua Redman, Gregoire Maret, Fred Hersh, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Chris Cheek, Dave Douglas, Carla Bley, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Billy Hart.

As a Composer and Arranger, Talmor is equally involved in writing for jazz and classical idioms.

He leads his "Grand Ensemble" project which last played at the New York Winter Festival and focused on a series of Virtuosic Études.
He has composed, arranged and conducted music for large ensembles, and for soloists including Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joshua Redman/Mark Turner/Chris Cheek, Gregoire Maret, Lee Konitz, Chris Potter or the late Michael Brecker.
His music has been performed by jazz ensembles around the world, including Germany's WDR Big Band, Portugal's OJM Big Band, Switzerland's Big Band de Lausanne, Lucerne Jazz Orchestra and DKSJ All Stars, Brazil's SoundScape Orquestra, Belgium's Bruxelles Jazz Orchestra, and NYC's MSM Big Band with the Brecker Brothers.

His contributions to the classical idiom include music for pianist Martha Argerich, São Paulo's Symphonic Band, the Spring String Quartet from Austria or Portugal National Orchestra. Talmor's large-form compositions include "Layas", his concerto for piano, drums and double orchestras, which premiered in February 2010 by the Porto National Orchestra, with the OJM Big Band with Jason Moran and Dan Weiss as featured soloists.

Other activities

Talmor is actively involved as a composer for films and radio plays.
His latest score is for the movie "Low Down" featuring John Hawkes, Elle Fanning, Glenn Close and musician Flea. The movie was primed at the Sundance and Karlovy Vary (Czech Rep) Film Festivals in 2014.
He has contributed numerous scores to Sci-Fi's Radio Drama Channel Seeing Ear Theater including the Tales from the Crypt audio series

Talmor is a Professor of Composition and Arranging at the Geneva Conservatory of Music. He is also an adjunct professor at the New School and Queens College CUNY in New York City.

In 2011 Talmor founded the Performance Space SEEDS::Brooklyn located in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, NY. [2][4]

In 2012 he was awarded the Jazz prize from Switzerland's SUISA Foundation for Music for his "innovative and creative jazz work". [3]

In 2015 Talmor was awarded the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Award for European Jazz Composer of the year.