YONG-YAN HU

USA

Specially-Invited Conductor for the Opening Concert of 2023 GMEL Violin Competition

Yong-yan HU is a Professor, Academic Leader and Head of Conducting, the Director of Orchestra Office at the School of Music, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Born into a musical family in Shanghai, HU Yongyan studied at the Central Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Zheng Xiaoying. After graduating from the Conservatory in 1983, he went on to Yale University and the Juilliard School to study under Otto-Werner Mueller, graduating in 1989.

His conducting career has spanned the world and included collaborations with world-class orchestras and artists such as Yo-Yo Ma and Lang Lang; he has also earned a Golden Record Award for his conducting on musical recordings. He has appeared as a guest conductor for major orchestras in Europe, the United States and Asia, including the Orchestre National de France, London's Royal Philharmonic, German orchestras and opera houses including the Theatre Lübeck, Opernhaus Kiel and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. Yong-yan HU served as Music Director and Conductor of several orchestras in the US, and later on returned to his hometown Shanghai to lead the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra as Music Director and Conductor.

In 2004, he founded an orchestra academy at the Central Conservatory of Music, where he served as Artistic Director and dean for many years. He also led the North German Philharmonic Orchestra as Principal Guest Conductor and taught at Yale University as a Visiting Professor. In 2016, he was awarded the Yale Presidential Award as one of 13 Distinguished Visiting Professors. He has assumed professorship as the artistic director of the Orchestra Academy at Zhejiang Conservatory of Music (2020-2022).