Emily Tsai

Appointed Fall 2023

Emily Tsai is a professional oboist, oboe instructor and music arranger.

She is the Assistant Principal Oboe in the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and can be seen performing regularly at the Kennedy Center in Washignton, DC on opera, ballet and musical theater productions.

Emily has a passion for education and is the Assistant Oboe Professor at the University of Maryland School of Music. She has also and has taught artist residencies and masterclasses at many colleges and universities, including the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, University of Maryland, Orchestra of the Americas and New World Symphony. 

Along with her local DMV positions in at the Kennedy Center and the University of Maryland, Emily is an MKI artist as the oboist of WindSync, gold medalist at the International Fischoff Competition and medalist at the M-prize Chamber Arts Competition.  She has performed with WindSync in prominent venues such as Ravinia, IL, the Library of Congress, DC, the Grand Tetons Music Festival, WY, Strathmore, MD, among others.  

Besides WindSync, Emily has performed chamber music with such prominent musicians as Nathan Hughes, Frank Morelli, Clive Greensmith, and Martin Chalifour. She is also the co-founder, oboist and violinist of C Street Collective.

She has been featured as a soloist with the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Alba Festival Orchestra, Amadeus Orchestra, Washington Asian Philharmonic and the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and has several solo appearances coming up this season.

Her main teachers include Mark Hill, Richard Killmer and Malcolm Smith. Emily received her Bachelor of Music degree in Oboe Performance, with a Performer’s Certificate and the Chamber Music Award, from the Eastman School of Music, and her Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Rochester, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She received her Master of Music from the University of Maryland, where she was part of the Graduate Fellowship Quintet.
 
Emily is a Lorée Artist and plays on a Lorée Royal oboe and a Lorée English Horn. 

Her greatest passions are to use music as a means to bring communities together, teach and encourage young people to engage with classical music and expand the repertoire for the double reeds in particular.

In her downtime, Emily has completed a number of half marathons, a full marathon, an Olympic triathlon, and a Tough Mudder, and loves to do various outdoor adventures with her husband, Karl.  Inside, she can be found playing video games, and spoiling her two adorable cats, Xenia and Perch.