Su Lian Tan

Su Tan.

Su Lian Tan

Su Lian Tan

Slee Visiting Professor of Music

About

Su Lian Tan is a much sought after flutist and composer. Her music has been described as “the stunner of the evening,” (Washington Post) and “…refined,

cultured compositions… Rewarding for everyone..a must own”(Fanfare). “Lotus Lives démontre que Montréal prend sa place dans la modernité de l’art lyrique. (Lotus Lives demonstrates that Montreal takes its place in the modernity of opera).”

-Frederic Cardin, CBC Radio Canada. “Wonderfully dramatic music….a spike of energy recalls the trio in Beethoven’s second Razumovsky” (Gramophone).

Making her first recordings at the age of 14, she has been featured in Flute Talk, Gramophone, Fanfare and American Record Guide. Tan has been commissioned by groups such as the Grammy-winning Takacs String Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, and the Vermont Symphony. Recordings of her music include a recent release, PanSync, which features Carol Wincenc performing Autumn Lute-Song and Tan as a flutist. Other recent releases include The Other Pictures, commissioned and performed by pianist May Phang and an album Revelations (ARSIS) named for a piano quintet commissioned for cellist Sophie Shao. Her intermedia chamber opera Lotus Lives was performed to great acclaim. Ming, composed for Joe Burgstaller (trumpet) had its premiere performance in Singapore. Recent commissions include Legends of Kintamani a cello concerto for Darrett Adkins, and Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra for Nicola Mazzanti recently premiered at the Galway Flute Festival and the International Piccolo festival in Italy. Fanfare magazine describes it as “a true gem in this repertoire”. A current project extends her collaborative work with living and award-winning authors, a work for choir and string quartet co-commissioned by the Jupiter String Quartet with text by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her music is published by ECS Publishing and Theodore Presser.

A dedicated teacher, Tan is Fletcher Professor of the Arts at Middlebury

College where she continues to be a mentor to talented young musicians. She has given seminars and masterclasses at Oberlin College, Boston University, and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, to name a few. She has received numerous accolades and citations for teaching as well as for her music, including awards from ASCAP, The Academy of Arts and Letters of Quebec, and the Toulmin and Naumburg Foundations. She was awarded several residencies from the Yaddo and MacDowell colonies. She holds degrees from the Trinity College, London (F.T.C.L.), Bennington College (B.A.), The Juilliard School (M.M.) and Princeton University (Ph.D.).