My music does not begin from a fixed sound-world. It begins with attention to how material behaves when it is shaped by form, mediation, history, notation, electronics, and resonance.
I’m drawn to sounds that resist me, sounds that do not settle quickly into beauty or explanation.
Acoustic instruments and electronics are both part of this inquiry. They are materials and qualities that are mapped and altered.
The music is personal because it reflects how I listen, how I think, and how I move through tension.
a mere different arrangement of the particulars, 2026
for violin, piano and localized electronics
Written for Thin Edge New Music Collective
New work for TAK ensemble, 2026
New work for Standing Wave, 2027
New work for Roger Admiral, solo piano
Current
Selected Works
Slightly Altered Suns
2024 / flute, saxophone, piano, percussion / 12′
Commissioned by Ultraviolet Ensemble. Premiered in Edmonton, 2024.
Details
I am not an island (etude on orchestra)
2023 / Stereo fixed media / 19′
Premiered at the International Computer Music Conference, Seoul, Korea, 2024
Details
Ways of Returning
2019 / amplified string quartet and electronics / 20'
Premiered by Quatuor Bozzini, Québec City, 2019. Presented at Le Vivier, Montréal, and the Whitney Biennial, New York.
Details
And / Or
2019 / large ensemble / 18'
Premiered by Turning Point Ensemble, Vancouver, 2019.
Details
An Overall Augmented Sense of Wellbeing
2017 / piano, violin, saxophone, percussion, and electronics / 30'
Hellqvist/Amaral/Hyde/Bierstone Project. Premiered in Cambridge, USA.
Details
Ksana II
2014 / Chamber ensemble / 16′
Premiered by Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2014
Details
Featured Recordings
Susurrus
GENGSENG Records, 2023
My Eyes Open Me
GENGSENG Records, 2020
About
Anthony Tan writes music for instruments, electronics, and recorded media. His work spans notated instrumental composition, studio practice, live electronics, piano improvisation, and fixed-media sound.
Awards include the Canada Council Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the Giga-Hertz Förder Prize, and a 2023 JUNO Award nomination for Classical Composition of the Year. He holds a Ph.D. from McGill University and the Meisterklasse from the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, and was a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. He is Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Victoria.
Contact
email: senzamisura88 [at] gmail [dot] com