水藍

“Master conductor of what has become a world class orchestra"
American Record Guide (March/April 2007)

Lan Shui has been Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since 1997, and was appointed Chief Conductor of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra from the 2007/08 season.

As a guest conductor, Lan Shui has worked in the US with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra. In Europe he has visited the Danish Radio Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony and the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. He has performed at Festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Round Top, Eastern Music and the Casals Festival. Upcoming highlights include return engagements with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Bamberg Symphony and the Aspen Festival, and 10 performances of the Tosca with the Royal Danish Opera.

Under Lan Shui’s direction, the Singapore Symphony has become known to the world and enjoys an exclusive recording contract with the BIS label. He has led the orchestra on several acclaimed tours to Germany, Switzerland, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, Spain and the US, and is passionate about commissioning, premiering and recording works by Asian composers.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Lan Shui studied composition at the Shanghai Conservatory and graduated from The Beijing Central Conservatory, where he studied conducting with Prof Xu Xin and Prof Huang Fei Li. He made his professional conducting début with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing in 1986 and was later appointed Conductor of the Beijing Symphony. In 1986, Lan Shui continued his graduate studies at Boston University and attended the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he worked closely with Leonard Bernstein. In 1990, he conducted at Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Summer Festival, where he came to the attention of David Zinman, who, in 1992, invited him to become Conducting Affliate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for two seasons. From 1994 to 1997, Lan Shui served as Associate Conductor to Neeme Järvi at the Detroit Symphony, and, in the same period, assisted Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic and worked with Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra at its Young Conductors’ Project in Paris.

Since 1998, Lan Shui has recorded over 16 CDs for BIS (including the first ever complete cycle of symphonies by Tcherepnin with the Singapore Symphony, and music by Arnold and Hindemith with the Malmö Symphony), with soloists such as Evelyn Glennie, Cho-Liang Lin and Gil Shaham. His most recent CD, Seascape, was chosen as one of the best releases of 2007 by International Music Web, and his album entitled Movement, with the Danish Radio Symphony, is nominated for 2008’s Grammy Awards.

Lan Shui is the recipient of several international awards: from the Beijing Arts Festival, the New York Tcherepnin Society, the 37th Besancon Conductors’ Competition in France and Boston University (Distinguished Alumni Award).