Judith Yan, conductor

Equally adept at conducting symphony, opera, and ballet, Judith Yan’s career has taken her internationally, conducting for major companies in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. She has held Staff Conductor positions at San Francisco OperaCanadian Opera Company, and National Ballet of Canada.

Her recent debuts were celebrated with critical acclaim: “In her Vancouver Opera debut, Canadian Conductor Judith Yan really shone in the pit, bringing extraordinarily lyrical and expressive playing from the Vancouver Opera Orchestra.” (Vancouver Opera, La Boheme, Opera Canada 2018). “Under the direction of Canadian conductor Judith Yan, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra is simply wonderful.” (West Australian Ballet, Don Quixote, Greg Ross, 2018). “Judith Yan, her Seattle Opera debut, conducted the orchestra with vigour and deep sympathy for the score.” (Seattle Opera, An American Dream, Classical Voice America, 2017). “Under the baton of Judith Yan, the music just came to life.” (Kentucky OperaOrfeo​, Arts-Louisville Reviews). “The Edmonton Symphony played splendidly under Judith Yan…coaxed many vivid, dramatically transparent moments from the players.” (Edmonton OperaLa Traviata, Opera Canada 2019).

While with the San Francisco Opera, she served as Staff Conductor, assistant to Maestro Sir Donald Runnicles, where her performances of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for San Francisco Opera was included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top Ten Classical Performances of the Year. Prior to San Francisco Opera, she served as the first Conductor-in-Residence of the Canadian Opera Company, where she made her debut with Britten’s Rape of Lucretia. As the Principal Conductor of Opera on the Avalon since 2010, she has lead numerous productions including Ours, Shawnadithit, Tosca, La Boheme, Tosca, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, La Traviata, Albert Herring, and Dead Man Walking.

As a conductor of symphony, she served as the Artistic Director of Guelph Symphony Orchestra for 8 seasons, where she expanded the orchestra’s symphonic and operatic repertoire with works by composers Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Philip Glass, Francis Poulenc, Leonard Bernstein. Along with new works and premieres, she added operatic repertoire by Puccini, Verdi, Strauss, Humperdinck, and created the unique Triple-Feature “Symphony, Opera, and Ballet” Gala. As a guest conductor, she has collaborated with orchestras such as Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand, Hong Kong PhilharmonicManitoba Chamber Orchestra and Saskatoon Symphony.

As a conductor of ballet, she has conducted over 90 performances at the Four Season’s Centre for the National Ballet of Canada, working with the world’s foremost choreographers including John Neumeier, Ronald Hynd, and James Kuldelka. With National Ballet of Canada and as a guest internationally, she has conducted the ballets of Balanchine, Cranko, Aldous, Bart, Harvey, Kiliàn, Lander, Stowell, Wright, and Grigorovich. Since 2010, she has had a close association with several ballet companies, including Hong Kong Ballet, conducting the company’s production of Swan Lake as well as premiering four of the company’s productions: Cynthia Harvey’s Sleeping Beauty, Terence Kohler’s The Nutcracker, Nina Ananiashvili’s Don Quixote, and the Asian world-premiere of Anna-Marie Holme’s Le Corsaire. She conducted the Polish premiere of Cranko’s ​The Taming of the Shrew in 2015 for Polish National Ballet, at Teatr Wielki in Warsaw.

In 2014, she made her Seoul conducting debut with Korean National Ballet, conducting the Korean Symphony in Yury Grigorovich’s La Bayadère, returning in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019 to conduct Patrice Bart’s Giselle, Grigorovich’s Swan Lake, and a revival of La Bayadère. She made her Australian conducting debut in 2017 with West Australian Ballet, conducting the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Lucette Aldous’s Don Quixote, returning in 2018 for the world-premiere of Krzysztof Pastor’s Dracula and 2019 for Greg Horsman’s La Bayadère.

Recent performances include 3 critically acclaimed world-premieres: Jack Perla’s An American Dream for Seattle Opera and John Estacio’s Ours for Opera on the Avalon, Krzysztof Pastor’s Dracula for West Australian Ballet, company debuts with National Arts Centre Orchestra for Cynthia Harvey’s Sleeping BeautyTeatr Wielki in Warsaw for the Polish premiere of Cranko’s The Taming of the ShrewWest Australian Ballet and West Australian Symphony for Lucette Aldous’s Don Quixote, and Yury Grigorovich’s La Bayadère for Korean National Ballet and Korean Symphony.

2018/19 season included Vancouver Opera for La Boheme and Edmonton Opera for La Traviata, the season-opening gala concert for the Elora Festival, a revival of the opera Ours at Opera on the AvalonDvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and Beethoven’s Mass in C with Guelph Symphony Orchestra, productions of Greg Horsman’s La Bayadère and the world-première of Krzysztof Pastor’s Dracula for West Australian Ballet.

​For 2019/20, she opened both Korean National Ballet’s season with Yury Grigorovich’s Swan Lake, and Edmonton Opera’s with Verdi’s Rigoletto, ​Sleeping Beauty ​with West Australian Ballet, and concerts with Guelph Symphony Orchestra.

During the pandemic seasons of 2020/21 and 2021/22, she travelled to Hong Kong Ballet for a production of Don Quixote, made her debut with Saskatoon Symphony in programme of Sibelius, Copland, and Bernstein, and conducted a concert with Opera on the Avalon and Newfoundland Symphony. In 2021/22, she made her debut with Kentucky Opera with Orfeo, and returned to Saskatoon Symphony with a programme of Franklin and Tchaikovsky.

This 2022/23 season includes productions with Opera Omaha for Suor AngelicaNew Orleans Opera for a new production of Madama ButterflyOpera on the Avalon for Jake Heggie’s Three DecembersSan Francisco Opera (Merola) for The Rape of Lucretia, continues her collaboration with Saskatoon Symphony, opening its 92nd season with a Canadian premiere of Gipps’s Symphony No. 2, Forsyth’s Viola Concerto, and a world-premiere SSO commission of Canadian composer, Christos Hatzis. She returns to Saskatoon in November for a programme of De Falla and Ravel, and again in 2023 for a concert of Copland and Wagner.

Also in the 22/23 season is the much anticipated world-premiere of Laura Kaminsky and Lisa Moore’s February for Opera on the Avalon.

Judith is fluent in English and Cantonese. She is a Canadian citizen and American Resident, eligible to work in USA, Canada, and Hong Kong.

https://judithyan.com/

Lucille Chung, piano

Born in Montréal, Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined performances” by Gramophone magazine, “combining vigor and suppleness with natural eloquence and elegance” (Le Soir).

She made her debut at the age of ten with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit subsequently invited her to be a featured soloist during the MSO Asian Tour in 1989. Since then, she has performed an extensive concerto repertoire spanning from Bach to Adams with over 70  leading orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Flemish Radio Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerífe, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Staatskapelle Weimar, Philharmonie de Lorraine, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Belgrade Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, KBS Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Dallas Symphony, UNAM Philharmonic (Mexico), Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires, MAV Symphony (Budapest), Lithuanian National Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra as well as all the major Canadian orchestras, including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Calgary, Winnipeg and Métropolitain, among others. She has appeared with conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Spivakov, Vasily Petrenko, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Stéphane Denève, Peter Oundjian, Gerd Albrecht and Charles Dutoit.

As a recitalist, she has performed in over 35 countries in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., Spivey Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional, the Great Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Seoul Arts Center, and Sala São Paulo. Festival appearances include the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Incontri in Terra di Siena in Italy, MDR Sommer Festival in Dresden, Lübecker Kammermusikfest, Salon-de-Provence Festival, Santander International Festival and Gijón International Piano Festival in Spain, Felicja Blumental Festival in Israel, Music@Menlo, Mainly Mozart, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Montreal International Festival, Ottawa Chamber Festival, Bard Music Festival in NY, International Keyboard Institute and Festival in NYC, Chang Chun Festival in China, and the Bravissimo Festival in Guatemala.

In 1989, she was recognized on the international scene as the First Prize winner at the Stravinsky International Piano Competition. She won Second Prize at the 1992 Montreal International Music Competition, at which she also won a Special Prize for the best interpretation of the unpublished work. In 1993, she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Governor General of Canada and in 1994 won the Second Prize at the First International Franz Liszt Competition in Weimar. In 1999, she was awarded the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Before turning twenty, she graduated from both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where she studied with Seymour Lipkin. She decided to further her studies in London with Maria Curcio-Diamand, Schnabel’s protégée, at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and received the Konzertexam Diplom from the Hochschule “Franz Liszt” in Weimar, where she worked with the late Lazar Berman. She was the first non-Italian recipient of the honorary title of “Master” upon graduating from the Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, Italy. She also worked with Joaquín Achúcarro at Southern Methodist University, where she held the Johnson-Prothro Artist-in-Residence endowed position. Ms. Chung is the recipient of the Honors Diploma at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy and was named Honorary Professor of the Jilin Arts College in China.

Lucille Chung has been hailed as “a considerable artist, admirable for her bold choice of music” by The Sunday Times for her recordings of the complete piano works by György Ligeti on the Dynamic label. The first volume was released in 2001 to great critical acclaim, receiving the maximum R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France, 5 Stars from the BBC Music Magazine, and 5 Stars in Fono Forum in Germany. The final volume, which also contains works for two pianos, was recorded with her husband, Alessio Bax and once again received the prestigious R10 from Classica-Répertoire. Her all-Scriabin CD won the “Best Instrumental Recording” prize at the 2003 Prelude Classical Awards in Holland as well as the coveted R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France.

She also recorded the two Mendelssohn Piano Concerti on the Richelieu/Radio-Canada label, which was nominated for the Prix Opus in Canada. In August 2005, Bax and Chung recorded Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with the Fort Worth Symphony and Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya with narration by Michael York. In 2007 she released a solo album for the Fazioli Concert Hall Series. Lucille then embarked on an exclusive contract with Disques XXI/Universal: Camille Saint-Saëns Piano Transcriptions and Mozart & Me. 2013 marked the release of a piano duo disc with Alessio Bax, presenting Stravinsky’s original four-hand version of the ballet Petrouchka as well as music by Brahms and Piazzolla for Signum Records. In 2015, she released an all-Poulenc album for Signum Records, which was chosen as the “Recording of the Month” on MusicWeb and most recently in 2018, her 14th album titled Liszt Piano Works was released to great acclaim. Her upcoming album for Signum Records will feature works by Debussy and Ravel.

Lucille is fluent in French, English, Korean, Italian, German, and Russian. She and husband, pianist Alessio Bax make their home in New York City with their daughter, Mila, and are artistic co-directors of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation, which seeks to further the careers of young pianists.

https://lucillechung.com/