Chen, Tao, an internationally acclaimed Chinese flutist, music educator, composer and conductor of Chinese orchestra, is the founder and director of the Melody of Dragon, Inc., the co-founder and director of Melody of Dragon & the Youth, the artistic director and conductor of the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and conductor of New Jersey Buddha’s light Youth Chinese Orchestra.
Graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in 1986, Mr. Chen has served as a professor in the Chinese music department. Since coming to the U.S. in 1993, he has performed and lectured throughout the country. In addition to traditional forms, Mr. Chen has won a reputation as a pioneer in the world of new music. His playing can be heard on several soundtracks of Hollywood movies including “Seven Years in Tibet,” “Corrupter” (with the New York Philharmonic), “The White Countess” and the PBS documentary “Under the Red Flag,” the “Voice of China,” “Becoming American” and an Italian movie “Singing behind Screen”. In the US, The New York Times called him a “poet in music” and his playing “a miracle of the oriental flute.” While on tour in Germany in 1989, the maestro Herbert von Karajan praises him as an artist whom “performed with his soul.”