Faculty

Tan Yun Qu is a Singaporean musician and currently pursuing a Master of Music in saxophone

performance at Northwestern University under the tutelage of Taimur Sullivan. She also holds the position of graduate assistant as production manager for the Northwestern Contemporary Music Ensemble. Previously graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts /Royal College of MusicBachelor of Music (Honours) Program, Yun Qu was awarded the Peru Award in 2022 as the

cohort’s best graduate.

As a soloist, Yun Qu has clinched awards at numerous competitions locally and internationally

such as the King’s Peak International Competition 2020 (1st Prize), Sugree Charoensook

International Music Competition 2021 (1st Prize) and the NAFA Concerto Competition 2022

(Grand Prize Winner).

Yun Qu is also a member of the Northwestern Graduate Saxophone Quartet and involved in the

quartet’s endeavors to premiere and perform new music works. Their recent performance at the

Northwestern New Music Conference 2023 includes new works by Cole Reyes, Karola

Obermueller and Keaton Garret. The quartet was also dedicated the saxophone quartet

arrangement of Stacy Garrop’s The Solitude of Stars which they recorded and premiered. As a

quartet, they have also worked with the Northwestern University Chorale, most notably to perform Tõnu Kõrvits’s Hymns from the Western Coast composed for saxophone quartet and choir. Yun Qu also performs with the Northwestern Saxophone Ensemble and performed the premiere of Hawk’s Nest by Laura Elise Schwendinger’s and Portal by Lawrence Dillon.

Also having an interest in ethnomusicology, Yun Qu has had the opportunity to present her

research paper: Singapore’s Manufactured Identity and its Impact on Local Musicians at the

Association of Asian Studies Conference 2023 held in Boston as well as at the Taiwan Musicology

Forum 2023.