Singaporean harpist Lishan Tan enjoys a multifaceted career as a performer, arranger, writer and teacher. As the winner of the VI Mexico International Harp Competition 2022, she made her debut with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional at Mexico City’s historical Palacio de Bellas Artes. Most recently, Ms. Tan appeared as a soloist alongside cellist Yo-Yo Ma with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the 2024 Tanglewood Music Festival. In the 2022 season, she performed two sold-out opening night concerts with Vista Philharmonic Orchestra at the invitation of Maestro Bruce Hangen. She has also shared the stage with notable groups such as The Metropolitan Opera, Silk Road Ensemble and The Beach Boys. Other achievements include being a 2024 Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, a 2022 Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist, receiving the Excellence in Performance Award for “Crossing” by Phang Kok Jun at the 2021 RH Prestige Awards (Chamber), and attaining Honorable Mention at both Boston Conservatory’s 2019/2020 Concerto Competition and Brookline Symphony Orchestra’s 2020 Concerto Competition.

The harp has taken Ms. Tan to places such as Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay to Boston’s Faneuil Hall and even to Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland. She freelances with America’s and Singapore’s leading ensembles such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Boston Pops, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Portland Symphony Orchestra, The Sarasota Orchestra, The Philharmonic Orchestra (Singapore) and Singapore Lyric Opera. Ms. Tan also brings music to the local community through events such as “The Future of Us” Exhibition, which celebrated Singapore’s 50th Anniversary, and “Hearts and Hugs,” a television program which featured celebrities executing a fundraiser for children in need. She has had the privilege to perform for Singapore’s Seventh President Dr. Tony Tan, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean and other Cabinet Ministers of Singapore. In Boston, she was a Community Performances and Partnerships Fellow at the New England Conservatory where she curated harp programs to bring to senior centers and music schools.

A founding member and resident arranger of Singapore’s premier harp quartet The Harp Quarterly, Ms. Tan aims to push the boundaries of her instrument through workshops and creative arrangements ranging from Metallica to Debussy. Her YouTube videos have garnered millions of views online, and the most successful, in which she used the harp and its various timbres to recreate sounds from a video game, surpassed 1 million views in under two months. She seeks to continuously expand the harp repertoire and explore non-traditional techniques for the instrument. Her long term project is conducting “Writing for Harp” workshops for composers to better understand how to write for the instrument and encourage more harp works to be written, and she collaborates with composers to premiere or record their new works. Ms. Tan also writes for the international harp magazine HarpColumn.

Lishan Tan holds a Diploma with Distinction in Music Teaching from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore), a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honors from The Royal College of Music (London) and a Master of Music in Harp Performance from Boston Conservatory at Berklee (USA). Upon graduating at the top of her class in her diploma and undergraduate years, she was additionally awarded the NAFA Chairman Award and RCM Musical Excellence Award. Her teachers have incouded renowned harpists Huang Yu-Hsin, Ina Zdorovetchi, and Dr. June Han. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Boston Symphony Orchestra harpist, Jessica Zhou, where she is the first harpist to be admitted to the doctoral program. When not thinking about music, Ms. Tan can be found sipping coffee, reading or boxing.