Celebrated for his “dramatic” and “assertive” playing  (New York Times), pianist, educator, and scholar Tristan McKay explores an uncharted musical terrain. His repertoire is centered on music by American composers from the past century and new works by living composers. He has performed with TAK Ensemble, Tenth Intervention, and Friends of MATA, and has performed internationally in Europe and Australia. Performance highlights include the album release of Mario Diaz de Leon’s Sanctuary, recitals featuring Ives’ Concord Sonata and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Preludes, a tour of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King with Paul Pinto, a portrait concert of Lee Hyla at The Stone, and an evening of music for six-sided keyboard with Mark Mothersbaugh.

A passionate and multi-talented educator, Tristan maintains a virtual piano studio from his home in Michigan. He is also on faculty at the State University of New York at New Paltz where he has taught courses in music history, music theory, music criticism, and research methods. 

Equally dedicated to doing research on the music of our time, Tristan holds a PhD in Piano Performance from New York University. His research interests include graphic notations, semiotics, aesthetics, and music ontology. He published a book entitled A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations: Ambiguity as Opportunity (Cambridge University Press), as well as peer-reviewed articles in Semiotics 2018: Resilience in an Age of Relation (2019), NOTES: Quarterly Journal of the American Music Library Association (2022), and The American Journal of Semiotics (forthcoming; 2023). Tristan is also a Contributing Writer for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, an award-winning multimedia hub for living music creators.