CHRYSANTHE TAN

Chrysanthe Tan (she/they) is an autistic, Cambodian-Greek-American composer, violinist, and songwriter based in Los Angeles. In 2015, she was named an ASCAP Spotlight Composer, and this year, ArtsBoston named her as “1 of 10 Contemporary LGBTQ Composers You Should Know in 2018." We share:

Chrysanthe's earliest memory of music
Chrysanthe's shift from a prestigious law school to Hollywood entertainment
The importance of curating our own content
The problems with western classical music culture

GET CHRYSANTHE’S FREE GIFT HERE:
“A collection of 5 healing songs. These are soulful selections from my piano and violin instrumental album ‘Stories’, meant to inspire a journey of self-love and healing.”

Highlights:

“I want my job to be my art and my passion and not everyone is so lucky. So it felt selfish to be doing something I like.“
“As a kid, i could not often talk back verbally to people. I would be very silent when people were talking to me because I did not know how to formulate the words to push back out. But my head would be firing off with music instead, especially if it was a heated thing. If someone was yelling at me, my brain would want to respond with music.”
‘If I had chosen medical school, I would’ve had my life bankrolled at that point.”
“My overall goal in art is to connect with other community members.”
“It means a lot to me to be proud of who I am and have that actually honored. When you share yourself and it’s celebrated, that’s empowering. When I started coming out about being autistic, sure some people were weird about it, but my fears about how i thought everyone would be weird about it were totally false. I had to put it out there to realize how much support I actually could invite. And hiding myself did nothing, but make me scared and assume that people wouldn’t accept or believe me or want to work with me again.”
“I want to have some power to program people that i think need more credibility and eyes, and interview them, and spotlight their music, because all of those voices are so important to me.”

#actuallyautistic #guessthetune
#yourstorymedicine

AUTOBIOgraphy

Chrysanthe Tan (she/they) is an autistic, Cambodian-Greek-American composer, violinist, and songwriter based in Los Angeles. Their solo work features electroacoustic baroque pop incorporating violin, looping pedal, vocals, and poetry, while her compositions feature spoken word-infused solo and chamber music. Chrysanthe’s work has been performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rockefeller Center, New Orleans Jazz Festival’s Rising Artist Series, US Embassy in Cambodia, ÆPEX Contemporary, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Syros Sound Meetings in Greece, and more. In 2015, she was named an ASCAP Spotlight Composer, and this year, ArtsBoston named her as “1 of 10 Contemporary LGBTQ Composers You Should Know in 2018."

As a violinist, Chrysanthe has toured internationally, recorded, and performed with artists like Ariana Grande, Paul Anka, Halsey, Marco Antonio Solis, Common, Alicia Keys, and Bastille and performed extensively on TV shows like Glee, America’s Next Top Model, 1600 Penn, and the American Music Awards. In 2015, she toured the world as pop star Ariana Grande's violinist on the Honeymoon Tour, playing in arenas across North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2017, she played violin on Halsey’s platinum album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.

Outside of her own music, Chrysanthe is a published writer and the co-host and curator of Underscore, a podcast produced by 91.5 KUSC that features innovative artists making music beyond the boundaries of classical. She also hosts a 3-minute podcast called Xanthe Briefly, which sheds light on the realities of being a queer, autistic, independent artist living in LA.