Karen Tay, harpist, enjoys a multifaceted career as a soloist, orchestral player, chamber musician, and educator. Praised by the Straits Times for her “elegant and understated virtuosity”, she is a highly sought-after harpist in New York and Singapore. Some of her achievements include winning the NAFA-Kris Foundation Concerto Competition (Strings), entering the finals at the Young Artist Harp Competition in the United States, and semi-finals at the Suoni d’ Arpa International Harp Competition in Italy and the Soka-Nippon International Harp Competition in Japan. She was most recently the invited artist of Kris Foundation’s annual recital series, where she presented a solo recital, including the premiere of a commissioned work, at the Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore. She was the selected Harp Fellow at the Pacific Music Festival 2025 in Sapporo, Japan.
She performs frequently with orchestras and ensembles in Singapore and New York. Some orchestras include the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, New Opera Singapore, and the Orchestra of the Music Makers. Recent performances in the United States include performing with the Kaufman Special Music School, Mayflower Art Center, Cecilia Chorus Foundation, Zamir Foundation, working with the orchestras of Bard College-Conservatory and the City University of New York, and recording for artists of various genres.
As A Creative Counterpart
As a chamber musician, she enjoys performing with a variety of chamber music settings. She performed Ravel’s “Introduction et Allegro” with Village Verein, a budding ensemble in the New York music scene. She also performed in a new chamber music concert series titled “In Bloom”, presenting works by aspiring young composers in New York. Most recently, she presented a full recital of harp chamber music, including a harp septet premiere of London-based Singaporean composer Lim Kang Ning. Also by the same composer, she premiered a Peranakan-inspired work for harp and marimba at the Pacific Music Festival 2025 in Sapporo, Japan.
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She has piloted a series of harp and music foundation workshops in schools and enjoys facilitating community music and outreach projects. A notable project was where she recorded in a Scholars-Give-Back Series as part of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts scholar alumni, raising funds for future students in financial need. She is a founding member of Singapore’s first harp quartet – The Harp Quarterly. A notable production was a reimagination of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, featuring a mulit-disciplinary performance of a new work by a Singaporean composer, complemented by original visual art projections. Through curating and executing multi-disciplinary performances and workshops, she is a versatile performer who enjoys sharing her art.
Representing her cohort as the valedictorian, she graduated with a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the joint program between Royal College of Music, London and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore under a full scholarship from OCBC. Her harp teachers throughout her years in Singapore are Huang Yu-Hsin and her mother, Magdalene Wong. She received a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music and is currently a Candidate in the Doctor of Musical Arts program where she also serves as a Doctoral Fellow teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. She is a Teaching Assistant at Columbia University under Christopher Washburne, professor and chair of the music department. She is a member of the Theory and Aural Skills faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. She is under the tutelage of Mariko Anraku, Associate Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In her spare time, she engages in research on cultural identity with a focus on the Peranakans of Singapore. She aims to publish a dissertation that highlights the significance of this cultural heritage and contribute to Peranakan discourse.