Sunday, March 19, 2017
Tristan Teo, nineteen, was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada where he started piano lessons at age six under the tutelage of Sasha Starcevich. He is both a fourth-year bachelor’s and first-year master’s student in the highly selective Accelerated B.M./M.M. Program at The Juilliard School where he studies with Jerome Lowenthal.
In addition to his musical studies, Tristan is a Secondary Piano Teaching Fellow at The Juilliard School, teaching piano to undergraduate and graduate instrumental music students at Juilliard. He is also a teaching fellow for Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, a Saturday instrument instruction program for talented children from backgrounds under-represented in American performing arts. In 2016, Tristan was selected to be a Performing Artist in a suite of online piano courses for aspiring pianists as part of Juilliard Open Studios, an innovative educational app from Juilliard Digital. Besides a love for teaching, Tristan has a keen interest in composing. Under the guidance of composer Philip Lasser, Tristan has composed works, for violin-piano duo and chamber orchestra, which have been performed in concerts at Juilliard.
Tristan Teo is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Other awards he has received are top prizes in several international piano competitions, including First Place in both Solo and Concerto Divisions of the 2011 Virginia Waring, Second Prize in the 2011 e-Piano International, First Prize in the 2011 Schimmel USASU International Piano Junior Competition, and Second Place and Best Performance of an American Work in 2014 PianoArts. Most recently, Tristan won the 2015 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition at Juilliard and was awarded Second Prize at the 2016 Hilton Head International Piano Competition.
Since his orchestral debut with Philharmonia Northwest at age ten, Tristan has performed as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras including Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Gulf Coast Symphony, and Yakima Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has given solo recitals in the United States, as well as in Canada, France, Germany, and Italy in venues such as Salle Cortot in Paris and the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California. Tristan has participated in master classes and had lessons with many noted pianists, including Christopher Elton, Peter Frankl, Gary Graffman, Alexander Korsantia, Robert Levin, and Ilana Vered.
Learn more about Tristan on his website at www.tristanteo.com.
