Anthony Tan

Research 

My research focuses on composition, theory, and sound. I write for instruments, electronics, and recorded media, with particular attention to form, timbre, perception, and the relationship between acoustic and electronic materials. My writing and creative work examine how notation, media, and listening inform compositional practice.

Brief biography

I joined the University of Victoria in 2020, after serving as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Born and raised in Calgary, I studied composition and piano performance at the University of Calgary, completed my Master’s and Ph.D. in Composition at McGill University, and later earned the Meisterklasse diploma at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. In 2016–17, I was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

National and international recognition includes the 2021 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the 2011 Giga-Hertz Förder Prize, both the Jury and Audience Prizes from ECM+’s Génération tour in 2014, and a 2023 JUNO Award nomination for Classical Composition of the Year.

Teaching

I approach teaching as part of artistic practice. I encourage students to question inherited assumptions about music, sound, form, and listening, while developing the technical and theoretical skills needed to communicate their ideas clearly. I advise undergraduate and graduate students in composition, electronic music, and interdisciplinary creative practice. My aim is to help students develop strong craft, critical thought, and an independent voice.

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 202B – Theories of Musical Texture
• MUS 302 – Harmony and Cognition
• MUS 401B – Counterpoint: advanced musical texture
• MUS 500 – Timbre Theory
• MUS 462/562 – Interactive Creation/Performance of New Music

Compositions & Recordings (select)

• a mere different arrangement of the particulars (2026)
  Piano, violin, and localized electronics
  Thin Edge New Music Collective

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

• Tan, A. (2023). Susurrus (Album). Gengseng Records 004.
• Tan, A. (November 2022). “An Overall Augmented Sense of Wellbeing” (Track). On No Hay Banda. No Hay Discos 002.

Writings (select)

• Tan, A. (2020). "Appreciation vs. Appropriation of Cultural Musical Objects". 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.