Young American pianist Conrad Tao has signed an exclusive recording contract with EMI and will release his debut full-length album, ‘Voyages’, in June. His first release on EMI, an iTunes exclusive EP in February 2012, was part of the ‘Juilliard Sessions’ series and included works by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Tao himself.   

‘Voyages’ features Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, five of Rachmaninov’s Preludes, Op 23 and Railroad (Travel Song), written by Meredith Monk in 1981, as well as two of Tao’s own compositions: vestiges, for solo piano and iridescence, for piano and iPad. The album also includes two bonus tracks through iTunes: improvisations on the Beach Boys songs I Know There’s an Answer and Surf’s Up.

‘I'm thrilled to be releasing "Voyages" as my full-length debut with EMI Classics,’ said the 18-year-old. ‘These are all works I feel deeply passionate about, and I am excited to share them with listeners this June.’

Conrad Tao currently attends the Columbia University / Juilliard School joint degree programme in New York. He has been named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a Gilmore Young Artist, and last year received an Avery Fisher Career Grant.  His compositions have won him eight ASCAP Morton Gould Composer Awards between 2004 and 2011, as well as a commission from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination. He launches his own UNPLAY three-day festival in June at Brooklyn’s powerHouse Arena.