呱呱爆料

搁别蝉别补谤肠丑听

My research focuses on concert music composition across acoustic, electronic, and mixed media, with particular emphasis on timbre and acousmatic theory, contemporary and improvisatory piano practice, music perception, and genre hybridity. My compositional methodology is experimental, privileging process over fixed outcomes. While formally trained in contemporary classical composition, I maintain an affinity for electronic music aesthetics and production techniques. My creative practice moves fluidly between manuscript and machine, integrating traditional notation with digital tools.

Brief biography

I was appointed to the 呱呱爆料 in 2020, following three years as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Born and raised in Calgary, I earned a B.Mus. in Composition and Piano Performance from the University of Calgary. I completed both a Master’s and Ph.D. in Music Composition at McGill University, where my research focused on live electronics and the intersection of music perception and compositional practice. I later pursued advanced studies in Germany, completing the Meisterklasse diploma at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. In 2016–17, I was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

My work has been recognized nationally and internationally through several awards, including a Juno nomination for Classical Composition of the Year (2023), the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music from the Canada Council for the Arts (2021), and the Giga-Hertz Production Prize from the ZKM | Karlsruhe (2011). In 2014, I received both the Jury and Audience Prizes as part of ECM+’s Génération tour.

Teaching

I believe in the teaching-artist paradigm, where artistic and mentoring practices influence each other. My teaching challenges students to question the traditional conceptions of how music may be defined and to search for personal approaches to sonic expression. I advise both undergraduate and graduate students and emphasize technical, and theoretical facility to communicate conceptual ideas effectively with the aim to develop the creative, thoughtful musician.

Courses Taught at UVic

• MUS 105 – Introduction to Composition
• MUS 205 – Composition I
• MUS 305 – Composition II
• MUS 405 – Composition III
• MUS 555 – Individual Tuition in Music Composition
• MUS 561 – Group instruction in Music Composition
• MUS 590 – Directed Study
• MUS 101A – Language of Music (Tonality)
• MUS 301B – Language of Music (1945 – Present)
• MUS 401B – Counterpoint: advanced musical texture
• MUS 500 – Timbre Theory
• MUS 462/562 – Interactive Creation/Performance of New Music

Compositions & Recordings (select)

• Drip Variations (2025)
  Saxophone, percussion and live electronics
  Scapegoat: Zagreb Biennale
  
  
• Slightly Altered Suns (2024)
  Flute, saxophone, piano, percussion
  Ultraviolet Ensemble: Edmonton
  
  
• I am not an island (etude on orchestra) (2024)
  Fixed media
  International Computer Music Conference: Seoul, Korea
  
  
• Pose VII: that which like a thread runs through (2022)
  Amplified bass flute and multi-channel electronics
  Maruta Staravoitava and SWR Experimentalstudio: Freiburg, Germany
  
  
• Ways of Returning (2020)
  String quartet and electronics
  Quatuor Bozzini: Montréal
  
  
• And/Or (2019)
  14 instruments and electronics
  Turning Point Ensemble: Vancouver
  
  
• An Overall Augmented Sense of Wellbeing (2017)
  Piano, violin, saxophone, percussion and electronics
  Hellqvist/Amaral/Hyde/Bierstone Project: Cambridge, USA

• Tan, A. (2023). (Album). Gengseng Records 004.
• Tan, A. (November 2022). (Track). On No Hay Banda. No Hay Discos 002.

Writings (select)

• Tan, A. (2020).. In I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.
• Tan, A. (2019). "Reality Sounding: Annesley Black’s 'not thinking about the elephants'." Circuit: musiques contemporaines, 29(3), 73-90.
• Tan, A. (2019), "Memory and Synchronicity: Two approaches to live-electronics." In Biró, D. P., Goldman, J., Heusinger, D., & Stratz, C. (Eds.) Live Electronics im/in the SWR Experimentalstudio (pp. 271 – 282). Wolke Verlag.
• Tan, A. (2014). "Timbre as Vertical Process: Attempting a Perceptually Informed Functionality of Timbre." In Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference (EMS14), Berlin, Germany.