Contact
Xenia Groh-Huxh@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594 -224
Katrin Matzke-Baazougkm@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594 -213
General Management
Together with the Mozarteum Orchestra, Lin Liao has recorded three works by Hans Werner Henze that are closely related to Mozart and Salzburg.
Works by Dora Pejačević, Dmitri Schostakowitsch, Gordon Kampe, Ludwig van Beethoven, Darius Milhaud, Giacomo Puccini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi und Richard Strauss
Lin Liao, conductor
Natasha Te Rupe-Wilson, soprano
Maria Theresa Ullrich, mezzo-soprano
Kai Kluge, tenor
Charles Sy, tenor
Johannes Kammler, bass
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Liavon Schwir, Commission for a double concerto featuring voice and flute, Word Premiere
Alessandro Baticci, Genesis of an Icon (2025) Word Premiere
Mirela Ivičević, Red Thread Mermaid, Austrian Premiere
Maria Kalesnikawa, flute
Viktoriia Vitrenko, soprano
ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
“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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“It is precisely these radical decisions that set ‘exoplanets’ (Robert Laidlow) apart from other contemporary sound experiments, and which Lin Liao at the podium clearly knows how to relish. (…) And one comes to the realization that even previously unheard sounds can turn out to be extraordinarily magnificent.”
bz Basel, Stefan Strittmatter, 21/03/2026
"Under the precise direction of conductor Lin Liao, the Staatsorchester magically brings the world of the third act of Tristan to life through the third song of the Wesendonck Lieder."
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG, Susanne Benda, 17.09.2024 - about the concert gala ‘Von allen guten Geistern...’ on 15.9.2024 at the Staatsoper Stuttgart
"Here, too, the circumspect conductor Lin Liao and the excellent Staatsorchester Stuttgart produced [Pavane for Orchestra F-sharp minor op. 50 from Gabriel Faure] a perfectly spherical and impressionistic sound. Clear structures, subtle colors and poetic allusions captivated the audience, who gave an enthusiastic final round of applause."
ONLINEMERKER, Alexander Walther, 15.9.2024 - about the concert gala ‘Von allen guten Geistern...’ on 15.9.2024 at the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Conducted with great skill by the excellent Lin Liao, the members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, backed up by extra musicians, unleashed a flood of mirific sounds.
CLASSIQUE D’AUJOURD’HUI, Bruno Serrou, 10.06.2024 - about the performance at ManiFeste 2024
[Lin Liao] takes the helm in The girl with the hurricane brain, where she surprises the audience like thunder and lightning and forces the musicians of the Lydenskab to a rigor worthy of Michael Schönwandt.
SCENEBLOG, Casper Koeller, 22.8.2024 - about the performance of the opera The Girl with the Hurricane Brain at the Teater Sort/Hvid Copenhagen
"A conductor with a special charisma (...) virtuoso conducting technique (…) tensed to the point of dance-like. (...) precisely placed dynamic and rhythmic signs, even into rigorous sound attacks. In this way she achieves performances of clarity and emotional impact. (...) a tour de force of orchestral and conducting proficiency."
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG ONLINE, Wolfgang Schreiber, 18.1.2024 – about the opening concert of Ultraschall Berlin – Festival für neue Musik 2024
"The finale of the evening was Lucia Dlugoszewski's Fire Fragile Flight, in which Lin Liao at the conductor's podium once again had the Klangforum rummage through a collection of gestural sounds with virtuosic dedication and at times almost slapstick-like acrobatics."
DIE PRESSE, Walter Weidringer, 24.10.2023
“Under the direction of conductor Lin Liao, [the musicians] find a style that is both precise and always flexible, which manages both to develop Manoury's great work and to refocus it in its liveliest moments.”
AltaMusica, Vincent Guillemin, 15.6.2022
“Lin Liao, a student of Péter Eötvös and well versed conductor of contemporary repertoire, leads the orchestra with candour and flexibility, in perfect symbiosis with Ircam electronics skilfully conceived and balanced by Carlo Laurenzi and Robin Meier.”
ConcertClassic, Pierre René Sema, 14.6.2022
"The way Lin Liao coordinates and balances the instrumental ensembles is a masterstroke. The members of the Orchestre de Paris (...) give Manoury's Ring an unprecedented splendour, marked by radiant sonorities and tireless commitment."
RESMUSICA.COM, Michèle Tosi, 10/6/2022
"The Ensemble Modern performed all of these pieces with dazzling animation, under the direction of the Taiwanese conductor Lin Liao, who has an overview of the structural whole. Throughout, the works were formally concise and captivating for their inner consistency."
FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU, Stefan Michalzik, 27/3/2022
"Lin Liao (…) presented a poised, focused presence at the podium, ramrod straight, without a baton, coaxing a wide range of colors, musical shapes, and feelings from the orchestra."
BACHTRACK.COM, Linda Holt, 14/3/2021
"The formidable, international twelve-piece ensemble of Lucerne Festival Alumni under the sovereign direction of Lin Liao, a native of Taiwan who lives in Germany, set the standard of interpretation here that made this atmospherically dense composition shine with characteristic instrumental colours."
NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG, Jürg Huber, 8/9/2016
Helmut Lachenmann: "Notturno", WDR Sinfonieorchester
Iannis Xenakis: "ST/48-1,240162", Basel Sinfonietta
Rebecca Saunders: "Traces", Basel Sinfonietta
Lin Liao, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Teodoro Anzellotti, Edicson Ruiz, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Modern
bastille musique, 2024
Lin Liao, Trio Catch, trio recherche, Karolina Öhman, WDR Sinfonieorchester
Lin Liao, Ziyu He, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg
Berlin Classics, 0303021BC, 2024
Lin Liao, Isang Enders, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Berlin Classics/Edel 0302768BC, 2022
KAIROS 0015101KAI
April 2022
Lin Liao, Michael Pelzel, Ensemble Ascolta
WDR 3 KulturForumWitten, 2021
Lin Liao, Anna Korsun, Ensemble Modern
WDR 3 KulturForumWitten, 2020
Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Lin Liao
Grammont Sélection, Lucerne Festival, 2016