| Biography | Lan Shui is a Chinese-American conductor and currently holds the post as Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of Copenhagen Philharmonic and Principal Guest Conductor of Denmark's Aalborg Symphony.
Born in China, Shui started as a violinist and eventually studied conducting at Boston University in the mid-1980s, first with Michael Charry and later with David Hoose. He made his professional conducting debut with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing in 1986 and was later appointed Conductor of the Beijing Symphony. In 1990 he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Summer Festival, where he came to the attention of David Zinman who invited him to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as Conducting Affiliate in 1992. From 1994 to 1997, he was Associate Conductor to Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony. In the same period he assisted Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic and conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in Paris as part of Boulez's young conductors' project.
Orchestras he has conducted include the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Malm·Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Tampere Philharmonic, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony, the North German Radio Symphony (NDR, Hamburg), the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony, the Bern Symphony, the Bamberg Symphony, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Komische Oper Orchestra, and the Thessaloniki Symphony.
Since he joined the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1997, the Orchestra has signed an exclusive recording contract with the international label BIS. Shui has led the Orchestra on several successful tours. In support of Asian-influenced works, Lan Shui is also passionate about premiering and commissioning new works. The Singaporean composer Bernard Tan's Violin Concerto was premiered in January 2006 with Lynnette Seah as soloist.
Shui is the recipient of several international awards, amongst them kudos from the Beijing Arts Festival, New York Tcherepnin Society, 37th Besançon Conductors Competition in France and Boston University's Distinguished Alumni Award. He also received the Cultural Medallion in 2009 in recognition of his work for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. |