Lin Liao

“A conductor with a unique charisma (…) a virtuoso of conducting technique (…) dynamic and rhythmic cues delivered with pinpoint precision, right down to the most rigorous sonic attacks. In this way, she achieves performances of clarity and emotional power. (…) a tour de force of orchestral and conducting mastery.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wolfgang Schreiber, 18.01.2024

The Germany-based Taiwanese conductor Lin Liao presents repertoire ranging from classical to modern with a keen sense of sound and a gift for dramaturgical design. Her work is characterised by a great openness to new art forms and a wide range of experience with cross-disciplinary programmes and projects.

Following last year’s resounding success, Lin Liao will once again conduct the season-opening concert at the Stuttgart State Opera in September 2026. Under the theme ‘A Journey Through the Opera House’, the concert gala offers a glimpse into the season’s productions. This includes a world premiere, which Lin Liao will conduct in February 2027 during her first opera engagement at the theatre: Gordon Kampe’s opera Die drei ??? und das Spiegelkabinett will be staged in a production by Anna Weber. Lin Liao will make her debut with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in October 2026 at the ORF musikprotokoll as part of the festival steirischer herbst, featuring world premieres and first performances by Liavon Schwir, Alessandro Baticci and Mirela Ivičević. In February 2027, she will lead the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in a programme including Berio’s Folk Songs and Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le toit.

A highlight of the past seasons was Lin Liao’s conducting of Philippe Manoury’s monumental spatial composition Ring with the Orchestre de Paris on the occasion of the coposer’s 70th birthday (“a masterstroke”, ResMusica). Most recently, she made her debut with, among others, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, the Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, performing works ranging from Mozart, Dvořák, Mahler and Sibelius to Peter Eötvös, Missy Mazzoli and Malin Bang. She has also conducted concerts with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, with whose members she developed a multimedia realisation of Stockhausen’s Tierkreis. With the Mozarteum Orchestra, she recorded three works by Hans Werner Henze for the Berlin Classics label in 2024, all of which are closely linked to Mozart and Salzburg; two of these are world premiere recordings. 

Lin Liao has a special relationship with the Lucerne Festival Academy, conducting them in performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen (2007) and Inori (2018), among others. On the 70th anniversary of the premiere of Pierre Boulez's Polyphonie X, she conducted the first revival of the work, which Boulez withdrew after its premiere, in Lucerne at the invitation of Wolfgang Rihm. She is also a regular guest at at renowned festivals such as the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, ManiFeste in Paris, Musica in Strasbourg, Klangspuren in Schwaz and the Witten Days for New Chamber Music.. 

In the field of symphonic music, Lin Liao was guest at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. She is also regularly involved in education projects at the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, among others. She has conducted ensembles including the Klangforum Wien, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, the Ensemble Contrechamps, the Norbotten NEO chamber ensemble, the Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble intercontemporain.

She developed her versatile musical theatre repertoire as 1st Kapellmeister at the Schleswig-Holstein Landestheater and previously in engagements in Chemnitz and Wittenberg and as a guest at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Vienna Operntheater and the Krefeld/Mönchengladbach Theatre. Among others, she conducted Tiefland, Hansel and Gretel, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Madame Butterfly, La Cenerentola, La Traviata, Don Carlos, and Die Fledermaus. In 2008 Lin Liao conducted the world premiere of Chang-Fa Yiu's opera The Peach Blossom Fan in Taipei, featuring a vocal and instrumental ensemble from the Beijing Opera and a Western symphony orchestra. In 2013, she premiered the chamber opera Out at S.E.A., a collaborative composition by six young composers, in Budapest, with further performances in Milan, Paris, Brussels and Krakow. Taking place in summer 2024 in Aarhus and Copenhagen and directed by Jude Christian, she conducted the world premiere of Laura Bowler´s new opera The Girl with the Hurricane Brain.

From 2020-22 Lin Liao has been realising her passion for promoting young talent through her teaching at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig. Previously, she directed the Weiwuying Academy within the Contemporary Music Platform at the new National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Taiwan, which aims to promote talented Taiwanese musicians in the field of contemporary music.

Lin Liao studied composition and piano at the Taipei National University of the Arts and subsequently completed her conducting studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with distinction. She received further artistic inspiration from master classes with Bernhard Haitink and Leif Segerstam, among others. Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös recognised the young conductor's qualities early on and entrusted Lin Liao with conducting Stockhausen's Gruppen at the Lucerne Festival in 2007. Since then, she enjoyed an intensive collaboration with Peter Eötvös, who invited her to several engagements including the Holland Festival in 2009, where she assisted him in the performance of the complete works of Edgar Varèse and led rehearsals with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ensemble Asko|Schönberg.

2026/27 season

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