The Chinese conductor Lü Jia has received great acclaim internationally. Born into a musical family in Shanghai, Lü began studying piano and cello at a very young age. He later studied conducting at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, under the tutelage of esteemed conductor Zheng Xiaoying. At the age of 24, Lü entered the University of Arts in Berlin, where he continued his studies under Professor Hans-Martin Rabenstein and Robert Wolf. The following year, he was awarded both the First Prize and Jury’s Prize at the Antonio Pedeotti International Conducting Competition in Trento, Italy, and launched his career as a conductor. 

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Over the past decades, he has conducted over 2.000 orchestral concerts and opera performances in Europe and America, and became the first Asian conductor to serve as the artistic director of a major Italian opera house, as well as the first Chinese conductor to lead Chicago Symphony. He has worked with important productions at the Bayersiche Staatsoper in Munich, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and La Scala in Milan, as well as opera houses in Lausanne, Turin, Rome, Naples, Verona, Venice, Florence, Frankfurt and Stuggart. He has also worked with many renowned orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Lyon National Orchestra in France, Finnish Radio Symphony, Hamburg Radio Symphony, Bamberg Symphoniker, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and many others across Europe, America and Australia. 

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Lü Jia was the first Chinese conductor to record Felix Mendelssohn’s complete orchestral works, and also the only conductor so far who has recorded the complete works by the important Swedish composer Ingvar Lidholm. His interpretations of German Classical Romanticism and French Impressionists have been praised for their “extremely convincing musical interpretation" with "musical precision and perfect baton technique.” Having directed nearly 50 operas in Italy and Germany, homelands of the European opera tradition, he has also been praised by Italian music critics as “a conductor who understands Italian opera even better than the Italians themselves do”.

 

In 2007, his performance of La Gazza Ladra at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro was voted as European Opera Production of the Year. That same year, in recognition of his important contribution to musical culture in Italy, Lü Jia was awarded the President’s Prize by President Giorgio Napolitano. In 2012, the Domingo International Vocal Competition invited Lü Jia to serve on the jury, making him the Competition’s first-ever Chinese jury member.

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In 2012, Lü Jia was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Opera at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing, China. Under his musical direction, NCPA's own productions of Lohengrin, The Flying Dutchman, Othello, La Nozze di Figaro, Un Ballo in Maschera, Tosca, and many other works, have received glowing reviews from the international press. With these brand new productions aspiring to high international standards, the NCPA has become a strong contender in the world of opera, and also launched an exciting new chapter in the history of professional opera productions in China. In the meantime, the NCPA Symphony Orchestra, under Lü's baton, has fast established itself as one of the leading new ensembles in the orchestral world in China, presenting impressive performances season after season.

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In 2017, LÜ Jia has been appointed as Artistic Director of Music of National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), and Music Director of China NCPA Orchestra. Before taking up his current posts in Beijing, Lü served as Music Director at Fondazione Arena di Verona, Artistic Director at Symphony Orchestra of Tenerife, Music Director and Principal Conductor of Macao Orchestra, as well as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor at Teatro G. Verdi in Trieste, Orchestra Regionale Toscana in Florence and Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden.