JOSHUA TAN
Principal Conductor, Singapore National Youth Orchestra

Joshua is presently Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra.

Second Prize winner of the 2008 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Competition, Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan’s rise to prominence on the international scene has been marked by recent successful debuts in Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Mariinsky Hall, Bunkamura, Shanghai, Beijing and Taiwan. Joshua was featured as the top Singaporean musical talent to watch for in 2009 by the Singapore newspaper, Lianhe Zaobao. He has won numerous awards and scholarships, including the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award, NAC-Shell Scholarship, SSO/MOE Scholarship and is the first ever recipient of the Charles Schiff Conducting Prize from the Juilliard School for outstanding achievement. In 2011, he received the Young Artist Award of Singapore.

Joshua has come to the attention of the leading conductors of today and has studied with James DePreist, Charles Dutoit, David Zinman and Kurt Masur. Other conductors he has worked with include Michael Tilson Thomas, Ingo Metzmacher and George Manahan. He had a successful stint as Resident Conductor of the National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra from 2009 to 2012 with numerous televised concerts and was Principal Conductor of the Guiyang Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2017. He was also cover conductor for Christoph Eschenbach and Lorin Maazel.

Joshua has conducted orchestras around the world including the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Beethoven Bonn Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Urals Philharmonic Orchestra, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Okayama Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Macau Symphony Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Toho Orchestra, and Evergreen Symphony Orchestra amongst others.

Equally at home with operatic repertoire, Joshua has conducted La traviata, L’elisir d’amore, Tosca, Rigoletto, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Un Ballo in Maschera, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Cosi fan Tutte, Turandot amongst others. Also adept at working with film/multimedia, he is a Disney-approved conductor and gave the Asian premiere of Fantasia. In addition, he has conducted the BBC’s Planet Earth Series and Disney-Pixar’s Dreams Come True. He has also conducted ballet productions including the premiere of Marco Polo, Swan Lake and Giselle.

Overseeing a special initiative, Joshua is the Director for the Asia Virtuosi since 2017, an annual festival orchestra which comprises of leading professional orchestral musicians from different orchestras in Asia. Highlights of the 2017/18 season include Giselle in Tokyo, Sleeping Beauty, L’elisir d’amore, Bernstein’s Mass and a performance of the complete West Side Story with film for the centenary in Singapore.

Joshua is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music (High Distinction).