Xiaotang TAN is a famous pianist on the classical music scene. He is currently a Professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Piano Studies at the Central Conservatory of Music.
With his fluless technique and highly personalized performance, TAN has won numerous awards at major domestic and international competitions. He was the first pianist awarded by “Golden Bell Award”, which is the highest level music competition within China in 2002. TAN also won the Sendai International Music Competition in 2004 and the Grand Prix Animato 2005 Rencontre Internationale Des Jeunes Pianistes in Paris.
Being active on the stages of music of both domestic and overseas, TAN has been invited to be a soloist collaborating with a list of orchestras such as China National Symphony Orchestra, China National Ballet Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and German Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian Mariinsky Theater Primorsky Branch Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra and other orchestras for seasons. On top of that, he has cooperated with many other well-known musicians all over the world and performed numbers of chamber music pieces, such as Beethoven and Brahms’complete set of sonatas for violin and piano, and a large number of other piano trio works.
As for other fields, TAN has been invited to attend and perform at the Ravel Music Festival in France, the Meissen Piano Festival in Germany, the Sendai Classical Music Festival in Japan, the International Mariinsky Far East Festival in Russia, the Imola International Piano Music Festival in Italy, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the NCPA May Festiva, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) China Orchestra Festival, the Roam About Classics music season, and the “ Belt and Road” Music Festival in Shenzhen. As an emerging pianist, Xiaotang TAN, made it an honor in 2008 to record the piano part for Beijing Olympics in the theme song You and Me and Olympic Flag, which was widely praised because of his donations to the Olympics.
Tan’s diverse in style of playing piano is highly praised in the field of modern music as well, such as the premiere of “Concert A Quatre” of Messiaen, “Sea Orpheus”of Maxwell Davies and Piano Concerto “Splendors” of Chao ZHANG. After the successful premiere of Xiaogang YE's “Scent of the Green Mango”, Tan was invited by the composer to go to Germany for recording the work, which was released by NAXOS. “A resolute retaliation to Cheap Romanticism”, “the rigorous and well-controlled style of playing was more preminet in modern music style, which has got strong self-discipline in structure”, said by Xiaogang Ye. In 2009, His recording of Qigang CHEN’s piano solo piece“Instants d'un Opera de Pekin” has been designated by the composer as a model recording and was included in the album of “A Century of Piano Solo Works by Chinese Composers (1913 – 2013)”.
Tan’s rigorous attitude of playing and his ability of perfect interpretation are in good graces of album companies. In 2011, he released his solo album recorded with Germany’s Bavarian Radio via Switzerland’s TUDOR label. In 2016, his recording with violinist Can GAO, which was supported by Beijing Higher Education Young Teacher Project, was released within China and won the twelfth " Top Ten Popular Record Award" of the year. In 2017-2018, TAN was invited to the Concert Hall of NCPA to record a number of solo and chamber music pieces for the NCPA label. In 2021, "The Complete of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas: Piano and Violin" co-recorded with violinist Danan LANG will be published globally by NAXOS Records and selected as one of the top 10 albums of 2021.
After graduating from the Central Conservatory of Music, TAN studied at the Germany’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and France’s L'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot, where he has been awarded the highest degree – Performance Diploma and Master Degree. In 2008, he returned to China with praise after studying in Europe then started teaching in section of the Piano Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. He has studied with the well-known Chinese piano pedagogue Professor Huiqing SUN, Mingsun ZHOU, Yuan LING and Professor Jun YANG, as well as the world-renowned pianists Thomas Duis, Marian Rybicki, Gerhard Oppitz, Stefano Fiuzzi and other famous teachers.