“Conrad is the kind of musician who is shaping the future of music.”
–New York Magazine
 

At eighteen years old, Conrad Tao has already accomplished more than most classical musicians do in a lifetime. A world-class pianist, concert –level violinist and acclaimed composer (he received the ASCAP Young Composer award eight years in a row), Tao is also a Gilmore Young Artist prize winner, a U.S. Presidential Scholar and was the only classical musician on Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list last year.

 
Fittingly for such an extraordinarily unique young artist, Conrad’s debut album Voyages is anything but traditional. The recording features two of his own compositions (the four-movement vestiges, plus iridescence, a work for piano and iPad), Meredith Monk’s Railroad (Travel Song), a selection of Rachmaninov preludes and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit – one of the most difficult works in the piano repertoire.

 
Voyages explores the shifting and unpredictable nature of movement in our lives. Says Conrad: “whether it be the surreal dream images of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit or my own vestiges, the restless motion of Meredith Monk’s Railroad (Travel Song), or the various moods of Rachmaninov’s preludes, the most interesting transformations of our lives come about not so much in getting from point A to point B, but rather in what happens between the two points.”
 
As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “It would be silly to advise keeping an eye out for Conrad Tao, or to suggest that this young man is going places. He’s already there, and he’s only going to get better.”

 
Photo credit: Ruimin Wang