LONG YU

Chairman of Artistic and Executive Committee

　　Long Yu is a Chinese conductor with an established international reputation. As a guest conductor, Mr. Yu regularly appears with orchestras in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Macao. Over the years, Mr. Yu has worked with a variety of groups, including the Hamburg State Opera, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig, the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, the Budapest Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, Le Theatre de Nice, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and has collaborated with many distinguished world class musicians including Neville Marriner, Mikhail Pletnev, Itzhak Perlman, Frank Peter Zimmerman, Matt Haimovitz, Charles Neidich and Tiziana Fabbricini. Mr. Yu has conducted the operas La Traviata, Turandot, Aida, Carmen, Lucia di Lammemore, Romeo and Juliet, and Don Pasguale to critical acclaim, and has developed a repertoire covering works spanning many different periods and forms. He has also produced operas for The Urban Council of Hong Kong for five successive years. His profound musical interpretations and unique style have won him broad acclaim and international stature.

　　Long Yu was born in Shanghai in 1964 into a family of musicians. He received his early music education from his grandfather the composer Ding Shande, and this prepared him for the rigorous formal music education he subsequently received first at the Shanghai Music Conservatory and then at the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. Mr. Yu’s current position is attributable to talent and hard work as well as direct guidance from first-rate music educators and conductors in both China and Germany.

　　Long Yu’s professional experience and achievements in his native China cover both the artistic and the administrative. In 1992, he was appointed principal conductor of the Central Opera Theatre in Beijing. In the same year, he was involved in organizing the inaugural Beijing New Year’s Concert, now an annual event, and served as its conductor for three successive years. In 1998, he founded the Beijing Music Festival (“BMF”). As the BMF’s artistic director, Mr. Yu’s considerable administrative skills and artistic judgment have played a pivotal role in establishing the BMF both as China’s premier classical music festival and as a significant annual world music event. Mr. Yu has earned widespread recognition for his role in helping to promote classical music and international artistic exchanges in China.

　　In 2000, Long Yu helped to found the China Philharmonic Orchestra (“CPO”) and was appointed its first artistic director. As an artist and administrator, Mr. Yu’s mission is to

　　Develop the CPO as a world class professional institution through extensive collaboration with top musicians from all over the world. His vision for the CPO is the creation of a truly professional orchestra that can bring the best of China's symphonic music to the world and offer high quality performances of a wide variety of western classical music to the Chinese people.

　　On December 16, 2000, Long Yu conducted the CPO’s inaugural concert in Beijing. This concert was a great success. Of the works Mr. Yu has conducted since the founding of CPO, Verdi's Requiem in February 2001, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust in January 2002, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and Du Mingxin’s Symphonic Peking Opera Female Generals from Yang Family represent milestones in China’s musical achievements. At the opening concert of the 5th Beijing Music Festival in October 2002, the CPO gave the PRC premiere of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”). In addition to a busy performance schedule in mainland China, the CPO has also appeared under Mr. Yu’s baton in the Casals Festival and toured Taiwan, Cupatina, USA, Japan and Korea. All the CPO’s overseas performances have been hailed as great successes.

　　In May 2003, Long Yu was appointed the music director of Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. From September 2003 to the end of year, he will conduct both CPO and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra for their European Tours and give performances at world famous Palais Garnier, Paris, National Opera Warsaw, GroBer Musikvereinssaal Vienna, and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Under the baton of Long Yu, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra made its Australian debut performance at the Sydney Opera House in July 2004.

　　Long Yu’s other achievements include recordings of Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Ding Shande’s Long March Symphony for NAXOS with the Slovak Radio Orchestra. In November 2000, he recorded two CDs for DG with the CPO, one of Wagner’s Overture to Tannh?user and the Schoenberg orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25, the other of highlights of Chinese symphonic music.

　　Long Yu received the 2002 Montblanc Arts Patronage Award from the Montblanc Cultural Foundation, and ‘Le grade de chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ (The Honor of Chevalier of French Art and Culture) from the Government of France in 2003.