Junping Qian
Conductor
Internationally acclaimed conductor Junping Qian is praised for his natural musicianship, spellbinding interpretations and easy rapport with the orchestras he works with. He having completed his second year as the Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, also served as a Visiting Faculty member at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from 2018 to 2020.
In the 2022-23 season, he made his debuts with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Transylvania Philharmonic Cluj. Besides other re-invitations from USA, UK, China and Romania, he’s also been invited to assist Orchestre de Paris during this season. In the 2023-24 season, he will make debuts with China National Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Chengdu Symphony Orchestra and complete the Brahms Symphony cycle with National Center of Performing Arts Orchestra Beijing and conductors Daniele Gatti, Myung-whun Chung, music director Lu Jia. Notably, with the Minnesota Orchestra, he created the Lunar New Year project from scratch and has been invited to be in charge of this project for 3 consecutive years.
During the 2021-22 season, he made debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Dinu Lipatti Symphony Orchestra, as well as several more in China, including with the National Centre of Performing Arts Orchestra Beijing, Shanghai Opera House, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Macau Orchestra, Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, Shandong Symphony Orchestra, Qingdao Symphony Orchestra. He also returned to work with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra and Kunming Nie’er Symphony Orchestra.
Shortly before the pandemic, he has been invited to conduct New York Summer Classical Music Festival Long Island and Morning Side Music Bridge in Boston. Other notable activities include a China Tour with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Teatro del Giglio Lucca, his South American debut with Orchestra SODRE in Montevideo, Uruguay, his North American professional debut with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, an open-air summer concert in “Summer Classics” Festival Sibiu and re-invitations from Toronto, Kunming, Bucharest, Iasi, and Tirgus Mures.
Since moving to Europe in 2014, Junping has conducted the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de Paris, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Rheinische Staatsorchester Koblenz, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Croatian National TV & Broadcast Orchestra, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, Roma Sinfonietta, Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Neubrandengurger Philharmonie, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt (Oder), Berlin Sinfonietta, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Festival Orchestra, Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra, Gyor Philharmonic Orchestra, Szeged symphony orchestra, Radom Chamber Orchestra, Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie, among others.
A personal career highlight for him was being engaged as Assistant Conductor of the new opera "Marco Polo" at the Guangzhou Opera House in April 2018, where he worked closely with composer Enjott Schneider, director Kaspar Holten, tenor Peter Lodahl, Maestro Muhai Tang, and the Macau Orchestra. He was also proud to be invited to lead the Iasi Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour celebrating the 100th anniversary since the formation of Romania and the end of World War I. During his time in Scotland, he also served as the Strategic Advisor and Residential Artist of the Shanghai & Royal College of Music London Joint Institute from 2018 to 2020. Before that he served as the Interim Staff Conductor of The Diplomatic Choir of Berlin.
Junping was the First Prize winner of the 2017 Bucharest International Conducting Competition which established his presence throughout Eastern Europe. He won the 3rd Prize and the Orchestra Prize in 7th Edition of Lovro Matacic Competition in Zagreb, Croatia, the 3rd Prize of Hans von Bülow Conducting Competition in 2021 and 3rd Prize of Princess Astrid Conducting Competition in Norway in 2022. He is the 2018 recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Scholarship and is supported by the Solti Foundation. In 2018, he was invited to participate in the prestigious Tanglewood Conducting Seminar, the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz, CA. Junping was one of the final winners of the prestigious INTERKATION-Conductors Workshop in Berlin, Germany, where he worked with Maestro Simone Young and Das Kritische Orchester.
After graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music, he studied conducting with Mark Gibson at the University of Cincinnati, Michael Jinbo of the Pierre Monteux Conducting School, and was the last private student of legendary pedagogue Otto Werner Mueller. He has been mentored by British conductor Daniel Harding since 2014, Sir Roger Norrington since 2019 and Christoph Eschenbach during spring of 2022. He graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin under Professors Christian Ehwald, Hans-Dieter Baum, and Manuel Nawri. His first appearance as a conductor was at the tender age of 10 with his school choir. He later became the Assistant Conductor of the Shanghai Youth Orchestra of the Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music until his graduation in 2009. Junping made his European conducting debut at the Verbier Festival in the summer of 2012.
Junping started his musical career as an accomplished violist, having won many prizes and scholarships including Second Place at the 2006 Johansen International Competition in Washington D.C., as well as First Place at both the China National Viola Competition in 2007 and the Morningside Music Bridge Chamber Music Competition in 2008. In the summer of 2016, he left his tutti position at the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, a position he won in 2014, to pursue conducting full-time.
