Shao-Chia Lü

Shao-Chia Lü was born in Taipei/Taiwan where he began his studies in his hometown, before continuing his education at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA and at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna.
 
Sebastian Shao-Chia Lü is one of the most outstanding conductors of the younger generation in Europe. During his five seasons at the State Opera Hanover, Germany serving as Music Director from 2001 to 2006, he captivated audiences and the international press with his highly musical and sensitive interpretations, which included new productions of Aida, Jenufa, Tristan und Isolde, Le Nozze di Figaro, Fidelio, Tosca, Vec Makropulos, Turandot, Der fliegende Holländer and Wozzeck. The highly praised production of Pelleas and Melisande under his baton was invited to the Vienna Festival in May 2004 and to the Edinburgh Festival in August 2004.
 
Shao-Chia Lü began his career in opera as First Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper in Berlin in 1995. With several new productions (Werther, Die Legende von der unsichtbaren Stadt Kitesch, Rusalka), he quickly made a name for himself in the opera scene. New productions at the SydneyOpera House (Puccini´s Manon Lescaut), the English National Opera (Il Trittico), and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels(Mussorgsky´s Khovanschina) established his international reputation. In Germany, his debut at the Stuttgart Opera with Turandot and at the Deutsche Oper with Madame Butterfly followed. In the summer of 2003, Shao-Chia Lü gave his debut at the Hamburg Opera with Elektra and at the Klangbogen Festival in Vienna with a new production of  Macbeth by E. Bloch. In 2005, Shao-Chia Lü debuted at the Frankfurt Opera with Jenufa. 2007 included Parsifal in Göteborg and La fanciulla del West in Stuttgart.
 
Beside his work in opera, Shao-Chia Lü is also a passionate and equally praised concert conductor. He has been Music Director of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz from 1998 to 2004. During these years, he built up a wide range of symphonic repertoire. Mr.Lü has conducted many of the leading European orchestras including the Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics, Gothenburg Symphony, Orchestra Sinfonica di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonics, the Orchestre National de France in Paris, the Bournemouth Symphony, as well as the major orchestras of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
 
In Germany he has been a regular guest with the Munich Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Museumsorchester and has also conducted the Symphony orchestra of the SWR Stuttgart, RSB Berlin as well as the Staatsorchester Stuttgart.
 
Shao-Chia Lü has been first prize winner of competitions as the Kirill Kondrashin Competition in Amsterdam, the Concours International de Jeunesse Chef d´Orchestre in Besançon, France, and the Concorso Internazionale per Direttori d´Orchestra Antonio Pedrotti in Trento, Italy