Colours and Variations: Karen Tay Harp Recital

Karen Tay, harpist, enjoys a multifaceted career as a soloist, orchestral player, chamber musician, and educator. Having learnt the harp at the age of 4 from her mother, she is a highly sought-after harpist in Singapore and New York. Some of her achievements include entering the Finals at the Suoni d’ Arpa International Harp Competition in Italy and the Young Artist Harp Competition in the United States, and receiving top awards at the Rave Harps International Prestige Awards and the NAFA-Kris Foundation Concerto Competition.

She performs frequently with orchestras and ensembles in Singapore and New York. Some orchestras include the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, New Opera Singapore, Orchestra of the Music Makers, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Recent performances in the United States include performing with the Kaufman Special Music School, Mayflower Art Center, and recording for artists of various genres.

As a chamber musician, she enjoys performing with a variety of chamber music settings. Most recently, she performed Ravel’s Introduction et Allegro with Village Verein, a budding ensemble in the New York music scene. She also performed in a new chamber music concert series titled In Bloom, presenting works by aspiring young composers in New York.

She has piloted a series of harp and music foundation workshops in schools and enjoys facilitating community music and outreach projects. A notable project was where she recorded in a Scholars-Give-Back Series as part of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts scholar alumni, raising funds for future students in financial need. She is a founding member of Singapore’s first harp quartet – The Harp Quarterly. Most recently, the group initiated a production in collaboration with Singaporean composer Avik Chari, to create a reimagination of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in a mulit-disciplinary performance with Singaporean visual artist Lynette Quek, supported by the National Arts Council and the Tote Board Arts Fund. Through curating and executing multi-disciplinary performances and workshops, she is a versatile performer who enjoys sharing her art.

Representing her cohort as the valedictorian, she graduated with a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the joint program between Royal College of Music, London and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore under a full scholarship from OCBC. Her harp teachers throughout her years in Singapore are Huang Yu-Hsin and her mother, Magdalene Wong. She received a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music and is currently in the Doctor of Musical Arts program where she also serves as a Doctoral Fellow in the Theory and Aural Skills Department. She is a Teaching Assistant at Columbia University under Christopher Washburne, professor and chair of the music department. She is also on the Theory and Aural Skills faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. She is under the tutelage of Mariko Anraku, Associate Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.