Conrad is the 2011 Soloist-Prize winner of Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern!!! “34 young soloists and 10 ensembles applied to the 35 “Junge Elite”-concerts in 2011 to win one of the wanted junior-prizes from Festspiele MV. Two of these prizes were given to two talented young Americans. The soloist-prize was given to the American pianist Conrad Tao [...]
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“Tao [is] naturally gregarious, curious, and smart. He’s also a composer. On his debut recording, just out on EMI via iTunes, he plays his confidently poetic Three Songs, which hold their own with a pair of Debussy preludes and Stravinsky’s Three Movements From “Petrushka.” Already, he’s moving into more ambitious compositional forms. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra recently asked him [...]
Conrad’s first commercially available recording, released by EMI Classics, is now available for purchase on iTunes. His installation in The Juilliard Sessions consists of works by Debussy, Stravinsky, and himself. View it in the iTunes store here.
Conrad’s performance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, hailed as “a blazing debut” by The Detroit News, has been posted in its entirety on the DSO’s YouTube channel. Watch it below:
Conrad Tao has been commissioned by the Dallas Symphony and Jaap van Zweden to write the official piece to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Quite an honour for someone whose (Chinese) parents were not even born at the time, but the decision was unanimous after Conrad’s mesmerizing success there last May… [via IMG Artists]
…Needless to say, Tao does not have an average college student’s life. Often, he said, juggling his schoolwork and performing career can be “incredibly frustrating,” especially since he does most of his schoolwork on the road. Having completed his high school studies entirely through independent study without tutors or teachers, Tao said that he is [...]
“I’ve found the work to be one of the most well-structured pieces ever written for the piano,” Tao said. “The first movement is almost 25 minutes long, yet the abundance of ideas never feels gratuitous — the structure of the work feels very intuitive. When I play it in a way I find satisfactory, the [...]
Conrad Tao made Forbes’ “30 Under 30: The Youngest Stars In The Music Business” list, alongside the likes of Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Adele. He is the only classical musician on the list. The article writes that “this year’s roster was handpicked by a panel of expert judges—Randy Phillips, chief of concert promoter AEG [...]
American Public Media’s Performance Today aired Conrad Tao’s Piano Trio second movement “Eventide” on October 28, 2011, as part of their featured 21st Century composers series. The Piano Trio was beautifully performed by the Juilliard Pre-College trio group, Dawn Wang, violin, Xinchi Wang, cello, and Conrad Tao, piano, and recorded on the From the Top show [...]
“Conrad Tao, who recently scooped the 2012 Gilmore Young Artist Award, is a pianist deserving of high accolades, as Benjamin Ivry soon discovers.” Click here to read Conrad’s interview with Benjamin Ivry in the September/October issue of International Piano magazine.
