- BA in piano performance and composition at The Julliard School
- Staff pianist at Eatman School of Music(2003-2008))
Michael Tan
Piano, Composition, & Accompanist
Locations
- Remote Lessons
- 24 Cambridge Lane
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Qualifications
Background & Experience
Michael Tan was born in 1975 in Shanghai, China. He began studying piano at the age of four and attended the Primary School and Middle School affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In 1990 he emigrated to the United States and continued his study with Milton Salkind, then president of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1998 he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied piano with Herbert Stessin and composition with Samuel Adler and David Del Tredici.
Tan recently moved to the Chicago area, and currently resides in Lincolnshire, IL. Just prior to the move he was in residence(2020-2022) at Young Chamber Musicians, Burlingame, CA, an inspiring chamber music program for talented and devoted young musicians based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides giving instructions to individual pianists and coaching chamber ensembles, notably the Aveta Trio (2021 Gold Medal Jr. Division, The Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition), he also gave several masterclasses, seeking to fully bring out the youthful love of music while guiding that love toward a deeper understanding of music.
As a collaborative artist, Michael Tan has served as staff pianist at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music(1998-2003) and then at the Eastman School of Music(2003-2008). Over the past thirty years, he has performed extensively throughout the United States and Asia both as a soloist and a collaborative pianist, gave masterclasses in music institutions and summer programs(such as the Aspen Music Festival), and has received enthusiastic critical acclaims from the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicles, among others.
From 2012 to 2020, Tan went back to China as a freelance pianist and teacher, focused on conveying the cultural and spiritual contexts of Western classical music to the Chinese audience. To that purpose, he has created several lecture concert series at the Peking University, exploring variously the fascinating relations between Austro-German music and English poetry, the spiritual journey of Western civilization as reflected through classical music, and Bach’s keyboard compositions in their religious and secular contexts. In 2019, Tan’s choral composition “Crying Ospreys”, based on the ancient Chinese Book of Songs was performed by the Chinese-German Madrigal Choir at the 11th Johannes Brahms International Choral Festival, and won a gold medal. Tan incorporated this piece into a largescale choral composition Book of Songs Cantata, which won the new composition prize at the 2020 11th China International Choral festival.
Settling with his family in Chicagoland, Tan looks forward to continue to explore through teaching, performing and composing the profound formal integrity and spiritual message that classical music has to offer for our age. He believes that a living art must at once attain to the highest standard of excellence and convey that excellence to a wider public.
Tan recently moved to the Chicago area, and currently resides in Lincolnshire, IL. Just prior to the move he was in residence(2020-2022) at Young Chamber Musicians, Burlingame, CA, an inspiring chamber music program for talented and devoted young musicians based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides giving instructions to individual pianists and coaching chamber ensembles, notably the Aveta Trio (2021 Gold Medal Jr. Division, The Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition), he also gave several masterclasses, seeking to fully bring out the youthful love of music while guiding that love toward a deeper understanding of music.
As a collaborative artist, Michael Tan has served as staff pianist at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music(1998-2003) and then at the Eastman School of Music(2003-2008). Over the past thirty years, he has performed extensively throughout the United States and Asia both as a soloist and a collaborative pianist, gave masterclasses in music institutions and summer programs(such as the Aspen Music Festival), and has received enthusiastic critical acclaims from the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicles, among others.
From 2012 to 2020, Tan went back to China as a freelance pianist and teacher, focused on conveying the cultural and spiritual contexts of Western classical music to the Chinese audience. To that purpose, he has created several lecture concert series at the Peking University, exploring variously the fascinating relations between Austro-German music and English poetry, the spiritual journey of Western civilization as reflected through classical music, and Bach’s keyboard compositions in their religious and secular contexts. In 2019, Tan’s choral composition “Crying Ospreys”, based on the ancient Chinese Book of Songs was performed by the Chinese-German Madrigal Choir at the 11th Johannes Brahms International Choral Festival, and won a gold medal. Tan incorporated this piece into a largescale choral composition Book of Songs Cantata, which won the new composition prize at the 2020 11th China International Choral festival.
Settling with his family in Chicagoland, Tan looks forward to continue to explore through teaching, performing and composing the profound formal integrity and spiritual message that classical music has to offer for our age. He believes that a living art must at once attain to the highest standard of excellence and convey that excellence to a wider public.