Biography

Possessing a wide range of symphonic repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, conductor Ching-Chun Lai has worked with professional orchestras, such as the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Buffalo Chamber Players, Gstaad Festival Orchestra (Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Switzerland), Madison Bach Musicians, New Jersey Symphony, New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), Richmond Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as regional orchestras.

In the course of her conducting career, Lai has performed in Jordan Hall in Boston, Overture Center and Music Hall in Madison (Wisconsin), and Chung-Hsin Concert Hall in Taiwan. She has prepared the orchestra and served as assistant/cover conductor for Gunther Schuller, JoAnn Falletta, and André Raphel, as well as Christof Perick, Larry Rachleff, and Duain Wolfe. Lai has also collaborated with renowned artists, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet, percussionist Aiyun Huang, violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, trombonist Burt Mason, and bassist Barry Green.

With her deep interest in opera and new music, Lai has conducted the world premiere of Maura Bosch’s opera Art and Desire, a University of Wisconsin-Madison commission. She has also worked for opera productions of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, L’elisir d’amore, and Maria Stuarda, Handel’s Alcina, Massenet’s Thaïs, Britten’s Turn of the Screw, and many others. A great success, the performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Madison Bach Musicians were described in Isthmus as “consistently excellent, from the opening triple-chorus to the final double chorus, while the harmonized chorales were soaring anthems of faith.” She collaborated with the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a founding member of the group, New Muse. With these dynamic musicians, Lai undertook several significant projects including fully-staged performances of Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies, and performances of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.

Lai made her conducting debut at the age of 19 with Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University Wind Ensemble and was appointed conductor of that ensemble soon after her first engagement. During her tenure, this ensemble won music competitions in Taiwan, became one of the top university wind ensembles in the country, and was invited by the Asian Pacific Band Festival to perform in the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Lai is currently appointed as Director of Orchestral Activities & Engagement and Associate Professor of Orchestral Conducting at Rutgers University. Prior to this appointment, she held the post of Director of Orchestras and Associate Professor at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam for over a decade. During her tenure, the Crane Symphony Orchestra has advanced swiftly in both quality of performance and reputation. The orchestra has performed in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In Potsdam, Lai appears annually in Potsdam’s traditional holiday “Candlelight Concert,” broadcast nationwide by PBS. As part of Crane’s mission for community engagement, Lai and the Crane orchestras tour regularly throughout the Northeastern United States.

A committed educator and experienced ensemble clinician, Lai has worked with numerous youth orchestras and university ensembles in Taiwan, Canada, and United States.  She has conducted Boston University Symphony Orchestra, as well as several honors orchestras in New York State and Massachusetts, given conducting masterclasses at universities in Taiwan, and served as ensemble clinician in New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Canada. Other highlighted educational engagements include a joint concert of Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, performed in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater.

Lai twice received the Church Memorial Conducting Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in recognition of emerging conductors who show great professional promise. She was recently granted a competitive research award, the Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Program sponsored by the State of New York/United University Professions.  Her interdisciplinary projects at SUNY-Potsdam include a collaboration with trombonist Burt Mason for the Untold Legacies residency (a series of concerts and discussions about diversity in classical music) as well as the Bill Williams’s residency, Path to Optimal Performance.

A Protégé of Gunther Schuller, Lai worked with the legendary maestro for over ten years. In addition, she worked with Neeme Jarvi and Johannes Schlaefli at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy in Switzerland, and participated in the Dallas Opera’s Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors. Masterclasses include work with Gustav Meier, JoAnn Falletta, Larry Rachleff, and Kenneth Kiesler. Lai holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Master of Music in Conducting with Distinction in Performance and Academic Honors from the New England Conservatory of Music. Lai also holds a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics and Aeronautics Engineering from the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. She has previously held faculty positions at The Ohio State University (Director of Orchestral Studies and Visiting Professor of Orchestral Conducting) and Mount Holyoke College.

Ching-Chun Lai is represented by William Reinert Associates.