Lan Shui has been Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since 1997, Chief Conductor of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra since the 2007/08 season and recently concluded a five year period as Artistic Advisor of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.
As a guest conductor, Lan Shui has worked in the United States with orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and the San Francisco, Baltimore, Detroit and Houston symphony orchestras as well as appearing at festivals including Tanglewood and Aspen. In Europe, he has performed with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Gothenburg Symphony, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Tampere Philharmonic and the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and maintains a regular relationship with the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.
He is renowned for his abilities as an orchestral builder and for his passion in commissioning, premiering and recording new works by the cream of Asia’s composers. Under Shui’s direction, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has become a world-class ensemble and enjoys an exclusive recording contract with the BIS label. Shui has led the orchestra on several acclaimed tours to Germany, Switzerland, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, Spain, and the USA, 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 debut with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing in 1986.