Conrad has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer. He is acclaimed as a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” (The New York Times), a “thoughtful and mature composer” (NPR) and “ferociously talented” (TimeOut New York). In 2011, Conrad was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a Gilmore Young Artist, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awarded him a YoungArts gold medal in music. He received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2012.
In 2018 Conrad made his Lincoln Center debut with a solo recital. He held a residency with the Utah Symphony, and had debut engagements with the Atlanta, New Jersey and Seattle Symphonies. Internationally, he has made appearances with Berner Symphoniker, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Verdi Milano and with the Malaysian Philharmonic.
Conrad’s career as composer has garnered an eight consecutive ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and the Carlos Surinach Prize from BMI. His solo recitals and orchestral appearances often include his own compositions and he receives frequent commissions for orchestral, chamber and multimedia works. As the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence, he premiered his orchestral composition, The world is very different now, commissioned in observance of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Most recently, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia commissioned a new work for piano, orchestra, and electronics, An Adjustment.
In 2013, Conrad curated and produced the inaugural UNPLAY Festival at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn. The festival explored the fleeting ephemera of the Internet, the possibility of a 21st-century canon, and music’s role in social activism and critique.
Conrad is a Warner Classics recording artist. conradtao.com.