Artistic Director/Chief Conductor of The Sichuan Orchestra of China (Sichuan Symphony) since December 2016, DARRELL ANG is considered one of the most entrepreneurial and influential conductors in the world. In the past two years, he has been invited to conduct major Chinese orchestras, including Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, NCPA Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, etc., winning appreciations and praises across the country. Darrell Ang opened the London Philharmonic’s 2019-20 season at the newly refurbished Eastbourne Congress Theatre. He is also a regular guest at the Mariinsky Theatre - having caught the attention of Valery Gergiev - where he conducts symphonic concerts and opera in St. Petersburg as well as at the new Mariinsky Theatre (Primorsky Stage) in Vladivostok. In the season of 2018-19, he made return engagements to the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Württemberg Philharmonie Reutlingen, Queensland Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Orchestra Haydn of Bolzano, Munich Radio, Barcelona Symphony, China National Symphony Orchestra; and conducted debuts with Moscow's State Academic Symphony "Evgeny Svetlanov”, Teatro Communale di Bologna, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony, Bilkent Symphony in Ankara, Orchestre National de Montpellier, and Denmark's Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester. His growing operatic profile includes recent performances of Don Giovanni and Rigoletto at the Mariinsky, Carmen at the Estonian National Opera, Die Zauberflöte and Nijinsky's Tagebuch in Bordeaux, Der fliegende Holländer in Singapore and Così fan tutte in Toulon.
Darrell Ang has been invited to the United States in June 2022, conducting the renowned San Francisco Opera for Dream of the Red Chamber, a supreme modern opera jointly created by the “dream team of Chinese artists” – composed by Chinese American composer and MacArthur Fellowship Bright Sheng, co-libretto by Sheng and Chinese American librettist and Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, directed by distinguished director Stan Lai, and stage art designed by Academy Award for Best Production Design winner Timmy Yip. Dream of the Red Chamber was debuted in San Francisco in September 2017. For the re-staging of this opera, Darrell Ang believes it will create a new trend of phenomenal Chinese culture and become a symbolic cultural event in the Greater Bay Area. A world conductor grew up in the Eastern tradition and immersed in the Western music system, Darrell Ang expects to demonstrate the Eastern legend in the way of Western art language through this opera, forging a cultural bridge in the new era between the East and the West.
Darrell Ang also made auspicious debuts and return visits to over twenty orchestras across the globe - including Vienna's Austrian Radio Symphony, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, a tour through New Zealand with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Antalya Symphony, USA's Pacific Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de la UAEH (Mexico), Estonian National Symphony, the Manila Symphony, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, and NCPA Orchestra. Also a regular recording artist of uncommon pedigree, Darrell has scored many successes for the Naxos label: his first disc - a recording of music by the Chinese composers Zhou Long and Chen Yi - was nominated for a Grammy in 2016; and other discs include bestselling albums of overtures by Offenbach, Meyerbeer, Dutilleux's Second Symphony and Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole.
In his native Singapore, he became the youngest Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra - working closely with then Music Director Lan Shui - and also served as Music Director of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. In 2010 Darrell led the World Youth Olympic Games Orchestra in an internationally televised opening ceremony of the first-ever World Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. He was also Artistic Director of the Singapore International Festival of Music until 2017, which brought together top musicians from around the world to Singapore in impeccable formations alongside Asian musicians.
Darrell Ang's uncommon gift was discovered at the age of four when he began to play violin and piano. His natural artistic curiosity had no bounds, and soon he was inspired to study composition. As a teenager, he followed his musical dream to Vienna, and then to St. Petersburg where he studied conducting under the tutelage of Leonid Korchmar in the grand tradition of the legendary Ilya Musin. There he developed a particular passion for 20th century Russian music which - along with French and contemporary Asian repertoire - remains central to his artistic identity. Darrell continued his studies at Yale under the tutelage of Shinik Hahm, becoming its first Conducting Fellow. He took all three top awards at the 50th Besançon International Young Conductors' Competition - Grand Prize, Audience Prize and Orchestra Prize - leading to the music directorship of the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne (2012 - 2015). Three years later, Darrell was selected to join the prestigious International Conductors' Academy of the Allianz Cultural Foundation and invited to take on residencies with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Lorin Maazel and Esa-Pekka Salonen were his mentors, to whom he remains grateful for their invaluable advice and support.
Since then he has cultivated regular relationships with some of world's top orchestras, including Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique du Strasbourg, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano "Giuseppe Verdi", Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, Berlin Radio Symphony, Munich Symphony, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Luxemburg Chamber Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra Madrid, NHK, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, China Hong Kong Philharmonic, and China Taiwan Symphony - among many others. In the UK, he also regularly conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he has conducted the world premiere of a new work by Tan Dun, as well as regular return invitations to the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia. Also a composer of note, his "Fanfare for a Frazzled Earth" was commissioned by German chemicals company LANXESS and premiered by the Singapore National Youth Orchestra in 2011. Darrell Ang is fluent in English, German, French, Italian, Russian and Chinese.
