Michael Tao – piano

The Programme

Michael Tao – piano

Piano Sonata No 7 in D major, Op 10 No 3
I. Presto
II. Largo e mesto
III. Menuetto: Allegro
IV. Rondo: Allegro

Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op 60

The Nutcracker, Op 71:
Pas de deux
(arranged Mikhail Pletnev)

The Artist

Michael Tao is a London-based pianist. He studies at the Royal College of Music with Professor Dina Parakhina under the Ash Music Scholarship alongside a Chemistry degree at Imperial College London. He began playing at seven with Dr Freni Yu-Ching Cha, and spent three years at the Royal College of Music Junior Department under Professor Konstantin Lapshin. He has since taken first prize in eleven international competitions, and has performed across the United Kingdom and abroad at venues including the Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room, Windsor Castle and Salisbury Cathedral. Michael made his concerto debut in Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the St Paul’s School Orchestra. In 2027, he will perform Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto with the Imperial College Symphony Orchestra.

As a full scholarship holder at the Oxford Piano Festival, he worked on interpretation with Stephen Kovacevich, Ingrid Fliter and Yulia Chaplina, and that experience still shapes the way he reads a score. Charitable and community work matters to Michael as much as the concert platform. He is a performing artist for the residents at Nazareth Care Home and counts it among the most fulfilling and rewarding parts of his performing career. Away from the piano, he can be found attempting Roger Federer’s forehand on the tennis court and somehow missing spectacularly each time.
Instagram: @michaeltao_piano
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