Su Lian Tan (born 1964) is a Malaysian-born American composer and flautist. Her works have been commissioned by the

Takács Quartet The Takács Quartet is a string quartet founded in Budapest, Hungary, and now based in Boulder, Colorado, United States. History In 1975, four students at the Music Academy in Budapest, Gábor Takács-Nagy (first violin), Károly Schranz (se ...

, Meridian Arts Ensemble and the

Boston Modern Orchestra Project The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra founded in 1996 by artistic director Gil Rose in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. In its first twelve seasons, the BMOP was able to perform over 80 concerts of conte ...

. She is currently a visiting professor of music at the State University of New York

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

as the Slee artist in residence. Born in Malaysia, Tan began a professional career in music at the age of 14. She went on to study at

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont, United States. Founded as a women’s college in 1932,

and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

with teachers including

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Biography ...

Bernard Rands Bernard Rands (born 2 March 1934 in Sheffield, England) is a British and American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna ...

and

Henry Brant Henry Dreyfuss Brant (September 15, 1913 – April 26, 2008) was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born ...

. She toured the world as a guest soloist, displaying her virtuosity on the flute, and making forays into

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

(she is a lyric

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

) and pop music. She was hired by Middlebury College in 1994, and since then, she has focused on teaching and composition.

Compositions

Recent premieres include a symphony, premiered by the Vermont Youth Orchestra, River of the Trunk, a

song-cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle, of individually complete songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled ...

, set with the poems of fellow Middlebury professor John Elder, and Orfeo in Asia for piano, performed at the 2008 International Albert-Roussel Festival (France). A series of songs composed in conjunction with author

Jamaica Kincaid Jamaica Kincaid (; born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson on May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan–American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. Born in St. John's, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, she now lives in North Bennington, ...

, entitled "Jamaica Songs" have been recorded for Arsis by the mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson.

References

Princeton University alumni 1964 births Living people Middlebury College faculty {{US-composer-20thC-stub