Born in Llwynypia, Glamorgan (Wales), Tann held degrees in music composition from the University of Wales, Cardiff, and Princeton University. Her compositions are published by Oxford University Press. Tann's orchestral works have been released on the North/South Recordings CD Here, the Cliffs, – "music of great integrity, impeccable craft, and genuine expressive ambition" Robert Carl, Fanfare 36:I.[3] Her overture, "With the Heather and Small Birds," commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival,[4] is her tribute to the land of her birth.
Until 2019 she was the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union CollegeinSchenectady, New York, where she had been since 1980, teaching courses on music theory and composition, in addition to founding the Union College Orchestra.[5] Tann was the invited Guest Composer-in-Residence for the 2011 Women in Music Festival, Eastman School of Music, where her commissioned work, "Exultet Terra" for SATB double chorus and double reed quartet was given its world premiere[6] and the 2013 Women Composers Festival of Hartford.[7]
Tann's honors included the selection of her piano composition, "Light from the Cliffs," as a repertoire choice in the 2012 William Kappell International Piano Competition and Festival. She received grants from ASCAP Standard Awards 1996–present, Meet The Composer, NEA, NYSCA, Welsh Arts Council, VW Trust, Holst Foundation, American Composers Forum, and the Hanson Institute for American Music Awards.
Her works include concertos for violin ("Here, the Cliffs" premiered by the North Carolina Symphony with Corine Brouwer Cook, 1997), alto saxophone ("In the First, Spinning Place" premiered by the University of Arizona Symphony with Debra Richtmeyer, March 2000), and cello ("Anecdote," premiered by the Newark [Delaware] Symphony with Romanian cellist Ovidiu Marinescu, December 2000).
"Shakkei," a diptych for oboe solo and chamber orchestra, was premiered by Virginia Shaw in the Presteigne Festival, August 2007, and has been performed multiple times, including in Dublin, at the 2008 IAWM Congress[8] in Beijing, in New York City, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and at the 15th World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok (2009), with Susan Fancher (solo soprano saxophone) and the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra.
