Conrad Tao: Rachmaninoff Playbook

Described by The New York Times as an artist of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision,” Conrad brings his singular imagination to the music of Rachmaninoff, tracing unexpected connections between the composer’s richly expressive voice and the worlds of jazz, Broadway, and American song.

Rachmaninoff spent much of his later life far from his native Russia, carrying with him a musical language shaped by memory and longing. In Conrad Tao’s hands, that language becomes a point of connection, linking Rachmaninoff’s sweeping lyricism to the music of Billy Strayhorn, Harold Arlen, and Stephen Sondheim—composers who likewise understood melody as a way of holding onto feeling, identity, and home. Blending Rachmaninoff’s music with reimagined standards and moments of improvisation, Tao creates a program that moves fluidly across musical worlds while remaining anchored by a deeply poetic sense of home.