Dr Tan Wee Hsin

Wee-Hsin Tan graduated from the renowned Eastman School of Music with Highest Distinction and holds Masters and Doctorate degrees in Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University. His Doctorate was completed and conferred in eighteen months, an achievement unprecedented in the history of the University.

Tan is active in the Singapore music scene. He was with the viola section of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra from 2001-2019 and is much sought after as a recitalist and chamber musician. His chamber recitals include those with the Eastman Virtuosi and Grammy Award winning Ying Quartet in New York, a live broadcast performance over NHK Radio in Tokyo, Choir of King’s College (Cambridge), SSO Chamber Series, Take 5 and PRISM at the 1^st Singapore Chamber Music Festival. Tan has also participated in numerous music festivals and exchanges, such as ASEAN Youth Music Workshop, Asian Youth Orchestra, ASEAN-Japan Symphony Orchestra, Kumamoto Festival, Kent Blossom, Nice Academy, Heidelberg Festival and Indiana University Festival for Professional Violinists and Violists. As a soloist, Tan has appeared with the SSO, Singapore Chamber Players and Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra.

Aside from performance commitments, Tan is also an avid conductor, educator and pedagogue. He was previously the Resident Conductor of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra from 2011 to 2014. Tan advocates interdisciplinary arts and has conducted large symphonic works, written primarily for both Chinese and Western instruments, infusing soundscapes from both the East and West. Some of these large-scale performances have also featured genres of traditional ballet and modern dance.

As co-founder and Artistic Director of Pacifica Music Academy, Tan works closely with very young string players primarily to bring music to the community. He designs and curates a curriculum that is befitting to each musician’s learning stage while considering the community in which these performances are presented. As such, the Academy’s curriculum is built upon a system of string pedagogy that utilizes music based on folk, traditional, popular and other mixed genres. In recent years, Tan has also been invited to adjudicate at the Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation.

Tan's principal teachers include Lim Tze Chian, George Taylor, Bradley Lubman (conducting) and Roland Vamos, whom Tan served as Teaching Assistant.