BIOGRAPHY

With “engaging the widest possible audience” as one of his main missions, Wilbur Lin aims to build a listening community one (small) town at a time.

Known for his creative programming and inviting stage presence, Taiwanese-American conductor Wilbur Lin’s career has taken him to symphony halls and opera theaters across the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Taiwan. Lin is currently the music director of the Missouri Symphony and associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony.

Lin’s recent highlights include his debuts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the symphonies of Elgin, Acadiana, and Juneau, an upcoming debut with Symphony Nova Scotia, in addition to his frequent returns to the Taipei Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, among others.

A equally strong advocate for new music and neglected composers of the past, especially American and British women composers, Lin is closely associated with the research and performance of works by Alice Mary Smith and Amy Beach. In his role as the associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony, Lin also serves as the music director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, with whom he released the premiere digital single of Alice Mary Smith’s The Masque of Pandora Oveture. Further recent activities include the release of a new studio recording with pianist Eric Zuber and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the creation of an interactive multimedia education concert series for the Taipei Symphony, and conducting and covering the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops where he finished his tenure as assistant conductor in 2022.

A graduate of Riccardo Muti's Italian Opera Academy, Lin’s operatic endeavors include conducting Verdi’s Macbeth at Teatro Alighieri, Le nozze di Figaro and L’elisir d’amore 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.

Educated in Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Lin has studied with Arthur Fagen and David Effron at Indiana University, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron at the Royal Northern College of Music, 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 Peter Oundjian, Jun Märkl, Louis Langrée, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Ken-David Masur, James Gaffigan, and John Morris Russell, among many others.

Lin resides with his wife in Denver, Colorado, is an avid runner, and flies just enough to justify maintaining his private pilot certificate.