Conrad Tao makes his North Carolina Symphony debut with this concert.

    Conrad Tao has been dubbed “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music” by New York Magazine and as an artist of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by The New York Times. He has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist. As a composer, he was also the recipient of a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for More Forever, his collaboration with dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher.
    Tao has recently appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, his first large-scale orchestral work, Everything Must Go, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic and will be premiered in Europe next month by the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. His violin concerto, written for Stefan Jackiw, is being premiered this season by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
    Last season, Tao was the focus of a series of concerts and interviews with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Andrew Norman’s Suspend live on television. He also appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Seattle Symphony, among others. Following his debut at Blossom Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra invited him to perform at Severance Hall in a special program, which included improvisation alongside pianist Aaron Diehl.
    Tao’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. His next album, Pictures, 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, was released in 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.