conductor bio

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Known for his creative programming and inviting stage presence, Wilbur Lin’s career has taken him to symphony halls and opera theaters across the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Taiwan. Currently the Music Director of the Missouri Symphony, Lin was also recently promoted to associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony.

Lin’s 2024/25 season will commence with a production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (Elixir of Love) with the Missouri Symphony and Landlocked Opera Company, include many classical and pops concerts with both the Colorado and Missouri symphonies, and see his return to Ann Arbor and Taipei symphonies. His other recent highlights include debuts with the Rochester Philharmonic, Oak Ridge, Ann Arbor, Elgin, Taipei, and Indiana’s Richmond symphonies, a new studio recording with pianist Eric Zuber and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and conducting and covering the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops where he recently finished his tenure as assistant conductor (2019-2022).

In addition to his positions with the Colorado, Cincinnati, and Missouri symphonies, in recent years, Lin has conducted the Chamber Philharmonic Taipei, Manchester Camerata, Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de El Salvador, Taipei Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony, Liverpool Mozart, Academy Orchestra of Taiwan Symphony, Richmond Symphony (IN), and LaPorte Symphony orchestras. As a cover conductor, Lin has worked with, notably, the Taiwan Symphony, Cincinnati Ballet, and Minnesota orchestras. In his role as the assistant (2023/24) and associate (2024-) conductor of the Colorado Symphony, Lin also serves as the Music Director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra.

A graduate of Riccardo Muti's Italian Opera Academy, Lin’s operatic endeavors include conducting Verdi’s Macbeth at Teatro Alighieri (Ravenna, Italy), Le nozze di Figaro at the Missouri Theatre with the Missouri Symphony, Die Zauberflöte and Barber of Seville with the Winter Harbor Music Festival (Winter Harbor, Maine), Menotti’s The Medium and Amelia Goes to the Ball as the conductor of Northern Illinois University, and has coached and performed as a pianist with the Indianapolis Opera, Indiana University Opera Theater, Reimagining Opera for Kids, and the Cincinnati Ballet. In 2022, Lin led a new workshop of Robeson by Scott Davenport Richards at the Cincinnati Opera.

Lin held the position of Taiwan Symphony Orchestra International Talent Fellow (2019-2021), Weiwuyin Opera (Taiwan) Conducting Fellow (2019-2020), Lord Rhodes Scholar (2013-2014), was a two-time recipient of Mortimer Furber Prize for Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), and holds a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Lin has studied with Arthur Fagen and David Effron at Jacobs, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron at the RNCM, and Apo Hsu at the National Taiwan Normal University. He has also received conducting coaching with, notably, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Muti, Sir Mark Elder, Helmuth Rilling, and has assisted Louis Langrée, James Gaffigan, and John Morris Russell, among others.