ICB Artist Bio
Conrad Tao
Pianist, Juilliard School of Music
Hailed by renowned music critic Harris Goldsmith as "the most exciting prodigy to ever come my way" (Musical America), 16-year-old Chinese-American pianist Conrad Tao was found playing children’s songs on the piano at 18 months of age and has never looked back. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he gave his first piano recital at age 4, and at age 8, made his concerto debut performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414. Conrad is currently a Gilmour Young Artist, an honor awarded every two years to single out the most promising of the new generation of U.S. pianists.
Conrad has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Dallas and Baltimore Symphonies, among others. He has given solo recitals at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Ravinia Festival, the Verbier Festival, UC Berkeley’s Cal Performance Series, the Gilmore Series, and has toured Italy, Mexico, Chile, Russia, China and Singapore.
Conrad’s packed schedule for 2011-12 includes an immediate reengagement in Utah, Detroit Symphony debut, 11 concerto performances in Florida, three European tours including recitals in Paris, Berlin and Verbier and concerts with orchestras in Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Poland.
As an accomplished composer, Conrad is an eight-time consecutive winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer award, since 2004. His first piano concerto, The Four Elements for Piano and Orchestra, was commissioned by the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, Ohio and premiered in October 2007. In the 2009-2010 season, Conrad was composer-in-residence with Chicago’s Music in the Loft concert series. His String Quartet No. 2, commissioned by the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music for the Jasper Quartet, was performed throughout the US during the 2010-11 season.
As an award-winning violinist, Conrad won the 2003 Walgreens National Concerto Competition, which led to his performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor with the Midwest Young Artists Concert Orchestra at age 8.
In June, Conrad received a medal from President Obama at the White House, after being named a 2011 Presidential Scholar for the Arts in music. Also in June, PBS began broadcasting a Great Performances Special nationwide, 'Dream with Me' with Jackie Evancho, where Conrad appears as guest soloist on both violin and piano.
Conrad currently studies piano with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky at the Juilliard Pre-College Division, and composition with Mr. Christopher Theofanidis of Yale University. He also studied violin with Ms. Catherine Cho for five years at Juilliard. Conrad recently graduated from High School and currently resides in New York City with his parents and sister. In September he will enter the joint Columbia University/Juilliard college program in New York.