Max Tan

Taiwanese-American violinist Max Tan has been praised as “eloquent” (New York Times) and “warmly rhapsodic” (Boston Globe) for “rhetorical playing that transcends the barlines” (Wieniawski Gazette). Forging a varied career as performer and educator, he has performed internationally on some of the world’s most venerable stages, soloing with the Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, The Juilliard Orchestra, amongst others. His performances have been broadcasted on WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WSMR (Sarasota), Musiq3 (Belgium), Polish Radio and Radio Poznan (Poland).

Recipient of the 2023 Gershen Cohen Violin Award, Mr. Tan makes his Carnegie Hall recital debut with pianist Marisa Gupta on April 3, 2024. Notable festival appearances include La Jolla Summerfest, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, YellowBarn, Chelsea Music Festival, and Prussia Cove. He has given the premieres of works by important living composers in North America and Asia, including Sur la corde raide by French composer Jean-Frederic Neuberger, Phylogenie by Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki, Night Scenery by Chinese composer Sang Tong, and chamber works by Catalan composer Marc Migó. His writings about music have appeared in The Juilliard Journal in New York and L’education musicale in France. Mr. Tan’s current dissertation research centers on the provenance of unpublished arrangements of Chausson’s Poème and other notable works for violin, piano, and organ by Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, the first recordings of which will be released in the coming months. His performances of these newly uncovered works have taken place in New York and Sarasota, Florida. Recently, he gave a lecture-performance on Ysaÿe's arrangement of Chausson's Poème at the Tianjin Juilliard School’s library opening, and also taught seminars on performance practice to students at Tianjin Juilliard and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

A Harvard alumnus and current doctoral candidate at Juilliard, Mr. Tan is founder and artistic director of Soundbox Ventures, which just launched the Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program as well as the Listen Hear Salon Concerts series. He is concertmaster of Opera Philadelphia and assistant faculty of violin at Juilliard’s Pre-College, in addition to maintaining his private studio. His mentors at Juilliard include Catherine Cho, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman.