Carey Tan

Composer, Conductor, Multi-Instrumentalist and Young Symphonic Voice

Carey Tan is a 13-year-old composer, conductor and multi-instrumentalist, currently studying at Eton College, where he holds both a King’s Scholarship and a Music Scholarship. Born in Beijing and now based in the United Kingdom, Carey has become one of the most distinctive young voices in contemporary symphonic music. His work focuses primarily on large-scale orchestral composition, bringing together philosophical thought, scientific imagination, contemporary social questions, spirituality and emotional narrative in a vivid and highly individual symphonic language.

Carey’s music is characterised by expansive structures, clear narrative direction, strong visual imagination and profound intellectual ambition. His recent works explore themes including war and peace, artificial intelligence, technological civilisation, nature, the universe, time, memory, human responsibility, spiritual growth and the deep connection between all forms of life. For Carey, the symphony is not only a historic form, but a living artistic space through which the deepest questions of the modern world can still be explored.

Carey began learning piano at the age of five and started composing at six. At eleven, he was awarded the ALCM Diploma in Composition from the London College of Music, University of West London, with distinction, becoming one of the youngest composers in the UK to achieve this qualification. By the age of thirteen, he had completed seven symphonies, one piano concerto, and more than thirty chamber and solo works.

His works have won 12 top prizes across seven international composition competitions and have been performed by leading professional orchestras across Europe and Asia, including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the China National Opera House Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Symphoniker, the London City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Arad Philharmonic Orchestra and the Shenwan Orchestra. His music has appeared in more than ten countries and in major international venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the China National Opera House Theatre in Beijing, the Royal College of Music in London and Cadogan Hall.

Symphonic Works

Carey’s symphonic writing began with Symphony No. 1, Four Seasons in Summer Fields, composed when he was eight. The work grew out of his experience of entering Summer Fields School in Oxford as a young boarder. Through the changing seasons, it traces a child’s emotional journey from separation and homesickness towards confidence, growth and belonging. Although deeply personal, the work already shows Carey’s instinct for large-scale structure, narrative movement and emotional transformation.

His First Piano Concerto, The Explorers, written at the age of eleven, expands from personal experience into the wider human impulse to explore. Its three movements — Pacific Diver, Sahara Runner and Mars Explorer — travel from the ocean to the desert and finally into outer space. The piano becomes the figure of the explorer: searching, struggling, becoming lost and finding the courage to continue. Carey performed the concerto himself at the Vienna Musikverein in 2025 with the Arad Philharmonic Orchestra, and later at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Berliner Symphoniker.

Symphony No. 2, The Cries of War was completed when Carey was eleven. The work does not depict one specific war, but reflects on the shared human trauma caused by conflict. Its three movements — Shadows of Misery, Reflection and The Pact — move from fear, destruction and suffering towards moral reflection and the possibility of peace. The work asks not who wins a war, but what war leaves behind: memory, pain, responsibility and the hope that humanity may still choose restraint, understanding and peace.

Symphony No. 3, The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity brings together Carey’s interests in artificial intelligence, civilisation, nature and the future of humanity. Its five movements imagine the construction, prosperity, imbalance, collapse and possible renewal of an AI-driven civilisation. The work is not simply about machines replacing human beings. Its deeper question is whether humanity can preserve creativity, judgement, emotion, responsibility and a connection with nature in a world increasingly shaped by technology. This symphony became one of Carey’s most widely discussed works in 2026 and was the focus of his BBC interviews.

Symphony No. 4, Journey Through the Universe marks a further expansion of Carey’s musical and philosophical world. Although it appears to describe a cosmic voyage through Earth, galaxies, black holes and unfamiliar dimensions, the work is also a symbolic journey through human life: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age and a state beyond ordinary physical existence. Its central idea is that every ending may contain the beginning of another form of being. In this work, Carey develops what he describes as a form of “cosmological existentialism”, using the universe as a mirror for human memory, transformation and spiritual search.

Symphony No. 5, Seven Doors to Eternity turns from the universe back towards nature and the inner self. Its seven movements — Sky, Flowing Water, Mountains, Earth, Life, Universe and Truth — follow a soul searching for truth across different realms of existence. At first, the soul looks outward, believing truth must be hidden somewhere beyond itself. Gradually, through nature, memory and human experience, it begins to recognise that truth may have been present from the beginning: in the world, in life and within the self.

Symphony No. 6, Elevated explores the meaning of spiritual ascent. The work begins with a human being’s desire for status, wealth, recognition and outward success, but gradually questions whether such forms of “elevation” may in fact lead to inner descent. Through movements including Up, Down, Freedom, Paradox and the specially conceived Movement Zero: Infinity, the symphony transforms the idea of rising higher into a deeper meditation on freedom, humility, paradox, nature, love, the finite and the infinite.

Carey’s latest work, Symphony No. 7, The Source of All Souls, is a choral symphony centred on love, harmony, life, spiritual origin and the deep connection between all souls. Moving from initial awakening to connection, coexistence and return to truth, the work brings together choir and large orchestra in Carey’s most openly spiritual symphonic statement to date. It continues the trajectory of his recent works, moving beyond conflict, technology and individual searching towards a broader vision of unity, compassion and shared existence.

The 2026 Brothers in Harmony Summer Tour

In 2026, Carey’s music reached a much wider international audience through the Brothers in Harmony: Where Classics Meet New Voices summer tour with his elder brother, pianist Kevin Tan. The concept of the project is built around a powerful dialogue: Kevin brings the great classical piano concerto tradition to the stage, while Carey introduces new symphonic voices responding to the questions of the contemporary world.

The tour began on 21 June 2026 at the Royal College of Music in London, where Carey presented a concert of his original orchestral works with the London City Philharmonic Orchestra. The programme included Four Seasons in Summer Fields, The Explorers, The Cries of War and The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity. Carey appeared not only as composer, but also as presenter, piano soloist and marimba performer.

On 24 July 2026, Carey returned to his birthplace, Beijing, for Peace and Future Symphony Concert — Kevin and Carey: A Night of Young Stars at the China National Opera House. The concert was performed by the China National Opera House Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Yuan Ding. Carey presented The Cries of War and The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity, while Kevin performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, the “Emperor” Concerto. The concert reached 3.82 million online viewers through its live broadcast and received wide coverage from major Chinese media.

In August 2026, the tour continued across Europe. In Karlovy Vary, Carey’s The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity created one of the most moving audience responses of the summer. A German audience member approaching the age of ninety was brought to tears. Having lived through the Second World War and witnessed the rebuilding of post-war Europe, she heard in Carey’s imagined future civilisation — its construction, collapse and rebirth — the history of her own life: war, ruins, reconstruction and memory. After the performance, she spoke with Carey at length. For Carey, this moment confirmed that once music enters a concert hall, it can awaken meanings far beyond anything the composer could have planned.

The tour also included performances at the Culture Palace in Arad, Romania, where Carey collaborated with the Arad Philharmonic Orchestra in The Cries of War, and at the Vienna Musikverein, where he returned to the Golden Hall with the same work. In Vienna, a family who had heard Carey perform The Explorers there in 2025 returned a year later to hear The Cries of War. After the concert, they waited nearly an hour outside the hall to meet him again. The encounter showed how Carey’s music was beginning to create continuing relationships with audiences across different countries and concert seasons.

The summer culminated on 7 September 2026 at Cadogan Hall in London, where Brothers in Harmony: Where Classics Meet New Voices closed with a sold-out concert featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Paterson. Kevin performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in the same evening, while Carey presented The Cries of War and The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity, joining the orchestra himself as a marimba performer.

The Cadogan Hall concert received an exceptionally warm audience response. Audience Club reviews all gave the concert 5/5. Listeners described the evening as “magnificent”, “magical”, “awe-inspiring” and “fabulous”. Carey’s symphonies were praised as “excellent” and “very evocative”, while one audience member wrote that it was “incredible to think that someone so young was able to compose both pieces.” Another commented on “how special” it was to hear the brothers supported by the Philharmonia Orchestra. Several audience members remarked that the standing ovations for both brothers were fully deserved.

BBC, Gramophone and International Media Attention

Carey’s artistic development has attracted growing attention from media in the United Kingdom, China, Austria and the wider international classical music world. He has been featured by the Oxford Mail, interviewed by Austrian television following his Vienna performances, and reported on by major Chinese media including CCTV, Beijing Satellite TV, Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, China Daily, China News Service, Guangming Daily, China Culture Daily, China Youth Daily, The Beijing News and Beijing Youth Daily.

On the day of the Cadogan Hall concert, Carey was interviewed by both BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC World Service’s Newshour. Both interviews focused on his Symphony No. 3, The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity, and explored artificial intelligence, human creativity, nature, emotion, the soul and the future of civilisation. The BBC introduced Carey as a young composer using music — one of humanity’s oldest art forms — to grapple with one of its newest challenges.

In these interviews, Carey explained that AI itself is not necessarily negative, but that humanity must not become so dependent on convenience, speed and technology that it loses creativity, individuality and the ability to recognise the beauty of nature. He also argued that AI can never truly replace composers, because the human soul, emotional truth and the way hearts speak to one another cannot be generated by a machine or algorithm.

On 21 September 2026, Carey’s music received further recognition from Gramophone, the century-old British publication and one of the world’s leading voices in classical music. Gramophone selected the complete third movement of his Symphony No. 3, Nature and the Universe, as its “Video of the Day”, presenting the performance to its international classical music audience. Recorded at Cadogan Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Geoffrey Paterson, the performance placed Carey’s own original symphonic writing at the centre of the feature. For a composer of just thirteen, such recognition from one of classical music’s most established specialist publications represents a particularly rare level of international professional attention.

The Gramophone feature also highlighted the breadth of Carey’s orchestral thinking, describing works that engage with war, artificial intelligence, nature, civilisation and the soul’s search for meaning. In discussing The Cries of War and The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity, Carey spoke about the impact of conflict on memory and the human spirit, and about the consequences of technological progress becoming disconnected from nature, morality and human feeling.

Following the Cadogan Hall concert, further media coverage in China and internationally highlighted the success of Brothers in Harmony and its significance as a cultural bridge between China and the UK. Reports from CCTV.com, Xinhua Silk Road, China News Service and China Daily described the sold-out concert, the collaboration with the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the strong emotional response from British audiences. Xinhua Silk Road also noted that the concert formed part of recent efforts to strengthen cultural exchange between China and the United Kingdom.

Composer, Conductor and Performer

Carey’s identity as a composer is closely connected to his life as a performer and, increasingly, as a conductor. He plays piano, percussion, marimba and organ, and frequently participates in performances of his own works. From 2027, conducting will become a significant part of his artistic practice: across seven orchestral appearances, Carey is scheduled to take the podium himself, conducting professional orchestras in performances of his own original symphonic works.

This close involvement with performance gives him a practical and physical understanding of instrumental colour, rhythm, balance, texture and orchestral communication. He does not think of orchestration simply as assigning notes to instruments, but as creating a living drama in which each instrument has its own voice, character and role. Conducting adds another dimension to this process, allowing him not only to imagine the architecture of a work and perform within it, but also to shape the entire orchestral sound directly from the podium.

In The Explorers, Carey performs as piano soloist. In The Cries of War and The Rise and Fall of AI Humanity, he often joins the orchestra on marimba. From 2027 onwards, he will increasingly conduct his own symphonic works, bringing together the roles of composer, conductor and performer within the same creative process. For Carey, a composition is not truly complete when the score is finished. It becomes fully alive only when it enters the rehearsal room, encounters real musicians and finally reaches an audience.

Carey’s multi-instrumental background also shapes his writing. Piano gives him a strong sense of harmony, structure and texture; percussion and marimba deepen his awareness of rhythm, physical energy and colour; organ has expanded his understanding of counterpoint, register and architectural sound. Conducting, in turn, gives him a broader perspective on ensemble balance, pacing, gesture and the long-range architecture of a symphonic work. Together, these experiences allow him to approach the orchestra from multiple perspectives: from the composer’s desk, from within the ensemble as a performer, and from the podium as the musician responsible for bringing the complete score to life.

Artistic Direction

Carey’s work continues to grow in scale, ambition and philosophical range. What began as music rooted in personal childhood experience has expanded into a symphonic world that addresses exploration, war, artificial intelligence, civilisation, the universe, nature, truth, spiritual transformation and the unity of life.

Although his music often begins with a strong image or story, Carey does not want it to remain only descriptive. His aim is to open a space in which listeners can encounter their own memories, questions and emotions. A work may begin as a piece about AI, war, the universe or nature, but its deeper subject is always human existence: how people choose, remember, suffer, hope, connect and search for meaning.

Carey does not believe that profound orchestral music should belong only to specialists. He wants symphonic music to retain its structural depth and intellectual scope while remaining emotionally direct and accessible to listeners from different backgrounds. For him, music should cross professional, cultural and linguistic boundaries. It should allow people who may not share the same language, nationality, age or life experience to meet within the same emotional and spiritual space.

As a young composer, Carey is still at the beginning of his artistic journey. Yet his work has already begun to show a clear and developing vision: to use the symphony as a living form for the present age, capable of holding both the great questions of humanity and the intimate experiences of the soul. For Carey, composition is not simply the creation of organised sound. It is a way of continuing to ask what it means to be human.

Composer’s Statement

For me, composition is not simply the creation of organised sound. It is a way of searching for truth.

My music usually begins with questions rather than answers. Why are human beings here? What gives suffering meaning? Can civilisation progress without losing its moral centre? What remains when ambition, status and material success are stripped away? Is the visible world the whole of reality, or only one part of something much larger? And can music bring us closer to things that cannot be fully explained through words?

I do not believe that every mystery needs to be reduced to an explanation. Some truths may first be recognised as feeling, intuition, beauty or an inner certainty before they can be expressed in language. Music allows me to approach those ideas without forcing them into a single answer.

At the centre of my thinking is the belief that existence is connected. Human beings are connected to one another, to nature, to memory, to the universe and, perhaps, to a spiritual reality beyond what we can immediately perceive. Love, conscience, imagination and compassion cannot easily be measured, yet they are among the most powerful forces shaping human life.

My spirituality does not belong to a rigid system. I am interested in the possibility that existence has a deeper source and meaning, and in the ways human beings have tried to understand that mystery through philosophy, science, art and spiritual thought. For me, spiritual depth must also remain connected to kindness. Intelligence without compassion can become dangerous; knowledge without humility can separate us from nature and from our own conscience.

This is one reason the soul appears so often in my musical imagination. I often think of the soul as a traveller. It can be curious, vulnerable, frightened, confused or lost. It encounters beauty, loneliness, uncertainty and transformation, but it continues moving towards understanding.

The soul in my music is never perfect. It learns. It changes. It rediscovers parts of itself that have been forgotten. This is why transformation is one of the ideas that returns again and again in my work. Darkness does not always mean meaninglessness. Fear can become a passage towards wisdom. Loss can deepen love. Destruction can leave behind a memory capable of guiding the future. What appears to be an ending may contain the beginning of another state of being.

“Every end is a new beginning” has therefore become one of the ideas closest to my music.

Nature plays an equally important role in the way I imagine sound. I feel particularly connected to water, open skies, mountains, grasslands and distant horizons. These landscapes give me more than visual beauty; they create stillness and a sense of belonging to something larger than human society.

Sometimes, when I am surrounded by nature, I close my eyes and meditate. As the external world becomes quieter, images begin to appear in my imagination: stars, light, distant landscapes, unknown worlds, symbolic figures or forms that seem to arrange themselves into a story. I do not try to force them. I allow them to develop naturally.

Gradually, those images begin to become music.

A colour may become an orchestral texture. Movement becomes rhythm. An atmosphere becomes harmony. A silent story begins to acquire melody. I often hear not just an isolated tune, but instruments, colours, gestures and layers of sound interacting with one another. My task is then to listen closely enough to write them down.

This is why my music often has a strongly visual and narrative character. I want listeners to enter a world rather than simply observe a musical structure from outside. A passage might suggest a frightened soul approaching the unknown, a civilisation becoming separated from nature, a memory returning from another stage of life, or a voice emerging from somewhere beyond the familiar physical world.

But however large the scene becomes, its centre must remain emotional. I am not interested in grandeur simply for the sake of grandeur. A huge orchestral climax should represent an inner revelation rather than merely loudness. Dissonance should carry tension, uncertainty or pain. Sometimes a quiet chord can contain more weight than the loudest moment in the entire orchestra.

I also believe that orchestration should carry meaning. Instruments are not decorations added after the music has been conceived; they are characters within the musical world.

A horn can become a distant call. A bassoon can sound ancient, vulnerable or unexpectedly human. Trembling strings may suggest fear, but also awakening. A marimba can evoke movement, intelligence, wonder or an unfamiliar form of life. A harp can open a passage between the earthly and the celestial. Percussion can become war, machinery, cosmic energy or the heartbeat of a civilisation.

Every instrument has its own breath, weight, movement and emotional personality. The relationships between them create the psychological world of a piece.

Science enters my music in a similar way. I am fascinated by time, space, dimensions, black holes, quantum ideas and the origins of the universe, but I am interested not only in how the physical world works. I am also interested in what these ideas might mean for consciousness, memory and existence.

I do not see physics, philosophy and music as separate worlds. Physics investigates the observable structure of reality. Philosophy asks how reality might be understood. Spiritual thought asks what it might mean. Music gives these questions an emotional life.

A scientific concept can therefore become a metaphor. Time can be a physical dimension, but also the experience of memory. Space can describe the distance between stars, but also the distance between people or states of consciousness. A black hole can be an astronomical object, but in music it can also become a symbol of fear, transformation and passage into the unknown. Different dimensions can become ways of imagining emotional, moral or spiritual states.

Many of the images in my music work in the same way. Water may represent emotion, renewal or memory. Mountains can suggest endurance, solitude and perspective. The sky may represent freedom or origin. Stars may become distant knowledge or guidance. Light may represent love, revelation or a source beyond ourselves.

I do not believe there needs to be a strict division between the childlike and the profound. A very simple image can contain an enormous idea. A butterfly can suggest the fragility and transformation of the soul. A journey through space can become a meditation on mortality. A mysterious voice can express a form of unconditional love.

Love is perhaps one of the most important ideas behind my music. I do not mean love only in a romantic or sentimental sense. I think of it as compassion for suffering, tenderness towards nature, forgiveness after conflict, connection between people and the presence of something greater than the individual self.

I am especially interested in love that remains when circumstances change — when certainty disappears, when people are separated, or when the outer world collapses. In music, this might appear as a harmony continuing beneath instability, a theme returning after destruction, or a quiet voice guiding the listener through fear.

To me, love is not weakness. It is often the thing that survives.

This also affects how I think about audiences. I do not believe that profound orchestral music should belong only to specialists. I want people without formal musical training to be able to enter my music. They may not recognise a harmonic device or identify an orchestration technique, but they can still experience fear, wonder, loneliness, tenderness, conflict and hope.

Accessibility does not mean making music shallow. It means allowing complexity to remain connected to recognisable human feeling. I hope listeners can see images, follow a journey and discover meanings of their own. A concert hall should not be a place where knowledge becomes a barrier; it should be a place of imagination, encounter and shared reflection.

I also do not expect every listener to interpret the spiritual ideas in my music in the same way. One person may hear a passage as a divine presence. Another may understand it as nature, memory, consciousness or universal love. I value these different responses. Music should open a door rather than dictate exactly what lies behind it.

Once a piece leaves the composer and enters the concert hall, it begins another life. The composer can decide where the music begins, but cannot decide where it will finally arrive inside another person.

That is one of the things I find most extraordinary about music.

I do not believe that a composer’s role is simply to arrange beautiful sounds. For me, composition is a way of investigating existence through sound. The orchestra becomes a place where ideas can breathe, struggle, change and reveal themselves emotionally.

Nor do I believe music must provide final answers. Sometimes its purpose is to bring us more deeply into the question. A symphony can create a space for contemplation. It can help us remain with uncertainty rather than immediately escape from it. It can remind us that mystery is not emptiness, and that what we do not yet understand may still contain beauty.

At the heart of my music is therefore a journey in two directions: outward, towards nature, humanity, science and the universe; and inward, towards memory, emotion, conscience and the soul.

I increasingly feel that these two journeys may ultimately be the same.

The further we travel into the universe, the more closely we may encounter ourselves. The more honestly we enter our own inner world, the more deeply we may understand our connection with others.

Music stands somewhere between these worlds. It carries thought into feeling and gives sound to things that are otherwise invisible.

I am still at the beginning of that journey. I do not know where all of these questions will lead.

That is precisely why I continue to compose.