CONRAD TAO
Pianist, Composer and Violinist
Born in Urbana, Illinois, 13-year-old Conrad Tao began showing an interest in music at a very early age, when he was found playing children’s songs on the piano at about 18 months of age. Conrad started violin lessons at age 3 and formal piano lessons at 3 1/2, gave his first public piano recital at age 4, and performed a recital at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Orlando, Florida at age 7. At age 8, he made his concerto debut with the Utah Chamber Music Festival Orchestra performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K414. At age 10, Conrad was featured on the national radio program “From the Top” as both pianist and composer, and he was featured again on PBS’s “From the Top - Live from Carnegie Hall” TV series in September 2006 as violinist, pianist and composer. Conrad’s recital performance has been featured on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today”.
Past concerto performances include those with the Aspen Festival Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, the California Symphony, the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Sinfonia, the Russian National Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Carnegie’s family concert in Carnegie Hall, among others. He has also given solo recitals at Juilliard’s Paul Hall, the Rockfeller University in New York City, Chicago’s Music in the Loft concert series, the Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts, and made his debut in Italy last summer. Highlights of his upcoming concerts include a debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach, engagement at Festival of the Arts Boca with the Russian National Orchestra, return engagements in Italy and a tour of China as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra. Conrad is the winner of Juilliard Pre-College’s Gina Bachauer Piano Competition and the Prokofiev Concerto Competition in 2006.
As an accomplished composer, Conrad has won national prizes since the age of 7 and his compositions have been featured on Chicago WFMT radio’s 50th anniversary program and the national radio program “From the Top.” At age 10, his piano composition, Silhouettes and Shadows, won the BMI Carlos Surinach Prize as the youngest winner of BMI’s prestigious award for young composers in the Western Hemisphere. Conrad is a four-time consecutive winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer award since 2004 and his composition, Sonata for Two Pianos, was featured at the 2004 award ceremony. He has given two composition recitals in New York City featuring eleven of his original compositions. In February 2007, his new composition, Duet for Erhu and Violin, a commissioned work by the Art Institute of Chicago, had its world premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Midwest Meets East concert. His first piano concerto, The Four Elements for Piano and Orchestra, was commissioned by the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, OH and will be premiered in October 2007.
As an award-winning violinist, Conrad won the 2003 Walgreens National Concerto Competition, which led to the performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor with the Midwest Young Artists Concert Orchestra at age 8. He is a recipient of the Stradivari Society violin for the past three years and is currently playing a 7/8 size Gagliano from 1750.
Conrad is currently enrolled in Juilliard’s Pre-College Division and studies piano with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky and violin with Ms. Catherine Cho. He studies composition privately with Mr. Christopher Theofanidis in New York City. A former student at the Music Institute of Chicago, Conrad studied piano with Mr. Emilio del Rosario, violin with Ms. Desiree Ruhstrat and composition with Mr. Matthew Hagle. Conrad currently resides in New York City with his parents and sister.
