in between concert tours, tarnowsky worked at the mariinsky theatre with albert coates. he then become piano professor at the kiev conservatory, where he taught vladimir horowitz and was his only teacher from the years 1914 to 1919 (horowitz was 11 years old when he first entered tarnowsky's class and 16 when he left to study with felix blumenfeld). his other students at kiev included alexander uninsky, vladimir yampolsky and anatole kitain. tarnowsky married glazunov's adopted daughter elena in leningrad on february 18, 1928, and they moved to paris. they emigrated to the united states in 1930. in 1933, he joined the depaul university school of music in chicago and appeared in concert with artists such as nathan milstein, william primrose, raya garbousova and maria kurenko. he recorded an album of tchaikovsky songs with kurenko.