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Tao Chen

Chen Tao is an internationally acclaimed Chinese flutist, music educator, composer, and conductor of Chinese orchestra; founder and director of Melody of Dragon, Inc., and of Melody of Dragon & the Youth; artistic director and conductor of the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and conductor of New Jersey Buddha’s Light Youth Chinese Orchestra; artistic director of New York Guqin Association; and executive chairman of the New York Chinese Music Instruments International Competition since 2015. He is also a 27th-generation musician of Zhi-Hua Buddhism music. The New York Times called Chen Tao a “poet in music” and his playing “a miracle of the oriental flute.” Conductor Herbert von Karajan praised him as an artist who “performs with his soul.” 

A graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Chen Tao was the winner of the 1989 National Folk Instrument Competition in China and has toured the United States, Germany, Italy, France, England, Holland, Singapore, and elsewhere. He has collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic and National Orchestra of Lyon. His playing can be heard on soundtracks of Hollywood movies including Seven Years in Tibet, Corrupter (with the New York Philharmonic) and on the PBS documentary Under the Red Flag. Since coming to the United States in 1993, Chen Tao has been invited to perform and lecture throughout the country. His second Flute Recital was performed in Carnegie Hall by the New York Flute Club in 2001. He has performed at Lincoln Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with groups such as the Manhattan School of Music’s Chamber Orchestra, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, and H. T. Chen Dancers. China Institute in America has invited him to perform and lecture on the Chinese flute since 1995. The World Journal and Tsingtao Daily have called him “king of the flute.” 

As a music educator, Chen Tao has been leading Melody of Dragon in collaboration with the Midori & Friends Foundation to develop Chinese music culture in elementary schools and high schools throughout the New York metropolitan area.

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Marcus Rojas

Tubist Marcus Rojas has performed with such diverse groups as The Metropolitan Opera, The American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony Orchestra, Radio City Music Hall, and ensembles led by Lionel Hampton, David Byrne and P.D.Q. Bach. An avid proponent of contemporary, improvised and classical music, he has performed the premieres of such notable composers as LaMonte Young, Gunther Schuller, and Peter Schickele. He has recorded with CBS Records, Sony Records, A&M Records and has been heard on countless film scores, including Interview With A Vampire and Sleepless in Seattle.