Elbphilharmonie Innerview: Conrad Tao

Inwards – in the »Elbphilharmonie Innerviews«, artists explore the Elbphilharmonie in their own unique ways, letting their thoughts run free. The result: special insights into the spaces of the concert hall and a rare opportunity to get to know the artists personally beyond the stage.

»As far as I’m concerned, the greatest feeling in the world is encountering something that I don’t have the vocabulary to explain and resonating with it,« says the pianist and composer Conrad Tao, who »The New York Times« recently lauded as an artist of »probing intellect and open-hearted vision«. In this Elbphilharmonie Innerview, the young US American talks about the importance of music, philosophises about its evolutionary benefits and what it means to understand each other.

The Elbphilharmonie’s »Innerviews« series is supported by our Principal Sponsor Julius Bär.

»I started playing music before I can remember,« reflects Conrad Tao, as he shares his earliest recollections of playing music at group community violin classes in his hometown in Illinois: »30 infants scrubbing away together on their instruments.« He switched from the violin to the piano at a young age, pursued studies in piano and composition, and quickly earned himself a string of accolades. Today, this grounded and open-hearted musician is one of the most in-demand pianists of his generation.

He has already performed as a soloist with major American orchestras from Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston. In the summer of 2024, he made his debut at the Elbphilharmonie, captivating the Hamburg audience with his rendition of George Gershwin’s »Rhapsody in Blue«.

He is also making a name for himself on the international concert stage with his own compositions. His first major orchestral work was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 2018. It’s no surprise that the prestigious »New York Magazine« has called Tao, born in 1994, »the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music«.

»Resonance and mystery together braid into celebration of our differences and a promise of our shared humanity,« declares Conrad Tao, referring not only to intercultural encounters, but also to wordless emotional connections between musicians on stage. For him, communication between different languages, cultures and boundaries is »the most life-affirming, humbling thing.«

»It is that capacity for communing together, and its myriad expressions, that I am interested in,« he says. The fact that people are able to communicate also fascinates him as an artist – and especially the role of music as a universal language: »I think that at some point it must have been evolutionarily advantageous for us to be able to hear one another, to perceive one another, to notice one another, to feel what someone is trying to share. To me music is one of the most profound ways of activating that capacity.«