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Photo by Shervin Lainez
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Photo by Brantley Gutierrez
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Photo by Brantley Gutierrez
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Gilmore Festival Photo by Chris McGuire
NYPhilharmonic at Steinway Factory, Feat Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher
Conrad Tao & Stefan Jackiw perform Stravinsky
Conrad Tao Performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the NY Philharmonic
John Adams: Century Rolls
The Oneiroi in New York

“Conrad is the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music.”

New York Magazine

“adventurous, agile and often electrifying as he navigated works both contemporary and classical.”

The New York Times

“Tao commanded the […] Piano with playing of assertive virtuosity, razor-sharp articulation, and an embrace of both the rhapsodic and the anarchic in the writing.”

The Washington Post

“Tao possesses startling technical elan and an ­ability to communicate clearly, no matter how thorny a score may become. He also has a hefty dash of charm.”

The Baltimore Sun

“[Tao’s] program… conveyed the scope of his probing intellect and openhearted vision.”

New York Times

“If I could, I would hear every performance he plays.”

San Diego Union Tribune

“Tao is foremost a musician’s pianist, who displays maturity and sensitivity beyond his youthful age. That was the effect of his Boston debut Wednesday night at Pickman Hall. Presented by the Celebrity Series, Tao’s recital of John Adams, Jason Eckardt, Schumann, Bach, and Beethoven reflected every shade of his soulful musical personality. Tao plays with remarkable precision and commanding presence. Subtle pauses between phrases and colorful tone recall the nuances and dynamism of Artur Schnabel and Martha Argerich. Yet there is a balance between power and delicacy that is all the pianist’s own.”

Boston Classical Review

“Then pianist Conrad Tao come onstage, and the casual atmosphere galvanised into something unforgettable. Tao was the feature for the remainder: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 17, William Grant Still’s lyrical tone poem “Out of the Silence” and “Rhapsody in Blue” from Gershwin. Mozart and Gershwin are essentially traditional summer sounds in New York but rarely, if ever, heard like this. Tao was clearly having fun, while also being serious about the music. From his very first phrase in the piano concerto, he added quick and judicious embellishments to every line, minuscule grace notes that expanded the colour and charm in the music, and so idiomatic that one felt this was how it might have gone when the piece was new.”

Financial Times

“…an imaginative, energetic and sensitive pianist. The 28-year-old from Urbana, Ill., not only brought out all the turbulent emotions of Mozart’s 24th Piano Concerto, but emphasized the calm within the storm at key junctures. Similarly, his interpretation of C.P.E. Bach’s Concerto in D was full of fleet, fiery passages and involving slow meditations.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune

“The concert opened with a splendid performance of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, another work that’s written across musical genres. […] Soloist Conrad Tao’s poise, fierce technique and footloose grace were ideal for the brash extroversion of the outer movements. In the slow movement, his sincerity never veered into sentimentality…The concerto and the oratorio both received, and richly deserved, standing ovations.”

San Francisco Chronicle

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer and has been dubbed “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music” by New York Magazine, and an artist of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by The New York Times.Tao has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony. As a composer, his work has been performed by orchestras throughout the world; his first large scale orchestral work, Everything Must Go, received its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic, and its European premiere with the Antwerp Symphony, and he was the recipient of a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, for Outstanding Sound Design / Music Composition, for his work on More Forever, in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist—an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation.

In the 2023-24 season, Tao makes his subscription debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Gershwin’s Concerto in F major with James Gaffigan. He also re-unites with the New York Philharmonic to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17, following his curated program for them last season as part of the Artist Spotlight series. Meanwhile, he celebrates the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue with multiple performances of the work and a new companion piece commissioned from him by the Santa Rosa Symphony. His return engagements include performances with the Cincinnati Symphony alongside Matthias Pintscher, the Oregon Symphony alongside David Danzmayr, and the Seattle Symphony, whom he play-directs in Conrad Tao’s Playlist, weaving Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 into an adventurous program of Stravinsky, Purcell, Linda Catlin Smith, and Morton Feldman. As part of the celebration of Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday, Tao brings Rachmaninoff Songbook to the 92NY and Germany’s Klavierfestival Ruhr, presenting a direct line from Rachmaninoff to the music of Billy Strayhorn, Harold Arlen, and Stephen Sondheim.

In a concert curated by Tao himself, Tao invites UK-based new-music collective Distractfold to make their NYC debut at Kaufman Music Center with the world premiere of Andrew Greenwald’s A Thing Made Whole VIII along with music by Jürg Frey, Hanna Hartman and Mauricio Pauly. This season also includes performances with dancer Caleb Teicher in the duo’s Counterpoint program, which synthesizes the two seemingly disparate artforms of piano and tap dance. More collaborations include a multi-city tour throughout the season with the Junction Trio, including a program of John Zorn, Ives, and Beethoven at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the trio’s Detroit debut, among many others.

In the 2022-23 season, Tao performed Mozart with the New York Philharmonic, for whom he also curated a program for their Artist Spotlight series, featuring collaborations with vocalist Charmaine Lee, and wind ensemble The Westerlies. Tao also made an appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom and the San Francisco Symphony, both as a soloist in Gershwin’s Concerto in F major at Davies Symphony Hall, and as a curator for their SoundBox series. In Washington, DC, he made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra performing Shostakovich with Dalia Staveska, and, following Atlanta Symphony’s premiere of his Violin Concerto with Stefan Jackiw in 2021, he appeared as soloist with the orchestra performing Ravel with Ryan Bancroft. After their successful collaboration with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Tao further re-united with Hannu Lintu to perform Tchaikovsky with the Naples Philharmonic, as well as returned to Finland to open the season with the Tampere Philharmonic and Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

A Warner Classics recording artist, Tao’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Of the album, NPR wrote: “Tao proves himself to be a musician of deep intellectual and emotional means”. His next album, Pictures, with works by David Lang, Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, Mussorgsky, and Tao himself, was hailed by The New York Times as “a fascinating album [by] a thoughtful artist and dynamic performer…played with enormous imagination, color and command.” His third album, American Rage, featuring works by Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski, and Aaron Copland, was released in the fall of 2019. In 2021, Tao and brass quartet The Westerlies released Bricolage, an album of improvisations and experiments recorded in a small cabin in rural New Hampshire in June 2019.

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.

AUGUST 2023