Patricia Tao, BA (Harvard), MMus (Indiana), DMA (Stony Brook)

Contact Overview

Contact

Faculty of Arts - Music Dept

Email: ptao@ualberta.ca

Overview

About

Pianist Patricia Tao leads an active life as a performer, teacher and concert organizer. Following studies in Boston, Indiana, and New York, she performed throughout the U.S. and Europe for ten years with the award-winning Guild Trio (Joanne Rile Management), and as a soloist, she toured the U.S. for Columbia Artists’ Community Concert series and overseas as an Artistic Ambassador for the USIA. She continues to perform throughout North America with her trio, Trio Voce (Jasmine Lin, violin, Marina Hoover, cello), which has released two critically-acclaimed CDs and performs both community-outreach concerts as well as at well-known venues (Lively Arts Series at Stanford University, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Music Guild of Los Angeles). Trio Voce’s live performances are broadcast frequently on Chicago’s classical music station, WFMT.

Now in her 7th year as Artistic Director of the Edmonton Chamber Music Society’s Summer Solstice Festival, she programs innovative concerts and collaborates with some of North America’s most distinguished soloists and chamber musicians. She actively promotes community outreach programs through the Hear’s to Your Health Concerts at the U of A medical school, which features both local and international musicians, as well as through arranging performances at local schools and organizing master classes by distinguished artists for young Edmonton musicians.

Dr. Tao is a dedicated and passionate teacher and has given master classes in North America, Europe and Asia and frequently adjudicates festivals in Canada. She was an Artist-in-Resident at the University of Virginia for two years, taught at Western Washington University and has been on the faculty at the University of Alberta since 2002, where she teaches piano and chamber music. Her distinguished teachers include Leonard Shure, Gyorgy Sebok, and Gilbert Kalish in piano, and Leon Fleisher, Bernard Greenhouse and Gilbert Kalish in chamber music.

Selected Works

In a New Light: Zemlinsky, Arensky and Suk, Con Brio Recordings

Inscapes: Trios of Weinberg and Shostakovich, Con Brio Recordings

Cello and Piano Sonatas: Chopin, Strauss and Liszt, Centaur Records

To the Spirit Unconquered, New World Records

Research

Areas of Research & Interest:

Piano
Chamber music
Piano Trio
Concert programming

Teaching

Areas of Instruction:

Piano
Chamber Music
Piano Literature