- Biography
Boon Hua LIEN
Participant of 2018
Boon Hua Lien is the Artistic Director of Wayfarer Sinfonietta and former Assistant Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. He is on faculty at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore and leads its contemporary music ensemble, OpusNovus. He was selected to be on the 2019/20 Peter Eötvös Foundation Mentoring Program and also served as Assistant Conductor to the Richard-Strauss-Festival 2018 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Highlights of Lien’s recent seasons include debuts with the Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Kraków Philharmonic and Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra. A rising opera conductor, he has led productions of operas by Britten, Rossini, Mozart and Salieri with Singapore Lyric Opera, The Opera People and Lirica Arts. He has appeared at the Singapore International Festival of Arts, Gdańsk Music Festival and International Mozartiana Festival, and received invitations to participate at numerous international conducting competitions around the world.
Lien has participated in masterclasses at prominent festivals with distinguished conductors, such as Bernard Haitink at the Lucerne Easter Festival, Paavo Järvi at the Pärnu Music Festival, Marin Alsop and Cristian Măcelaru at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and Stefan Asbury at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He was twice invited to masterclasses with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra where he received guidance from Osmo Vänskä, Markus Stenz and Thierry Fischer, and was named an inaugural Mahler Conducting Fellow for the Colorado MahlerFest XXIX.
Currently based in Singapore, Lien received his doctorate in orchestral conducting at the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Neil Varon and was awarded the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize for his outstanding achievements. He holds conducting and performance degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, with additional studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.
Works conducted in the Competition:
Round 1
Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op 84 (excerpt)
Weber: Der Freischütz Overture (excerpt)