Elisabeth Tsai was born into a musical family and began playing the cello at the age of four, switching to the piano at age seven. Throughout her adolescent years, she garnered top awards in local and international competitions and received opportunities to perform throughout the United States, including appearances at Carnegie Hall and From the Top’s radio show. Her recent endeavours have been largely repertoire-based, with recitals programming the last three Beethoven sonatas and the last four Brahms opuses for solo piano. She was recently awarded the first prize ex aequo at the 2024 Brahms Piano Competition Detmold.

Elisabeth received a bachelor’s from the Schwob School of Music and master’s degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Boris Berman and Boris Slutsky. She is currently studying with Ronan O’Hora as an artist diploma candidate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In addition to solo and concerto performances around the US, Germany, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands, she was a Fellow at the 2024 Norfolk/Yale Chamber Music Festival and was invited to the Smithsonian Chamber Society in 2023 to perform Beethoven piano trios on historical instruments. Elisabeth has been privileged to receive guidance from artists such as Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, Robert Levin, Imogen Cooper, Paul Lewis, and Till Fellner and is currently working towards learning and performing the thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas.

Elisabeth is passionate about music education as well as performance. She previously held a Teaching Artist position at Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT and taught at Through the Staff’s online music education program.