Conrad Tao
2012 GILMORE YOUNG ARTIST Conrad Tao
Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer, and has been dubbed a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by The New York Times, which also cited him as “one of five classical music faces to watch” in the 2018-19 season. In addition to the Gilmore Young Artist Award, Mr. Tao is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Recent seasons have included the New York Philharmonic’s world premiere of their commission Everything Must Go, and the inaugural concert of their curated late-night concert series Nightcap. He also made his LA Opera debut in the West Coast premiere of David Lang’s adaptation of Thomas Bernhard’s the loser, and made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, alongside debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center, and the New York Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden. In Europe he was presented by the Swedish Radio Symphony in recital and in Andrew Norman’s Suspend alongside Susanna Mälkki; he also returned to the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, performing with Antonio Pappano.
As a curator and producer, Mr. Tao presented the UNPLAY Festival in June 2013 at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn. The festival featured Mr. Tao with guest artists performing a wide variety of new works. Across three nights encompassing electroacoustic music, performance art, youth ensembles, and much more, UNPLAY explored the fleeting ephemera of the Internet, the notion of canonization in the 21st century, and the role music plays in social activism and critique.
Mr. Tao’s debut disc, Voyages, was released on the Warner Classics label. A second album (Pictures) followed, with works by David Lang, Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, Mussorgsky, and Tao himself. His third album, entitled Compassion, will be released in Fall 2019 and will feature works by Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski and Aaron Copland.
Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.