Jahja Ling

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Jahja Ling (Chinese 林望傑, born in Jakarta, Indonesia) is an orchestra conductor. He is of Chinese descent and is now an American citizen. He began to play the piano at age 4 and studied at the Jakarta School of Music. At age 17, he won the Jakarta Piano Competition and, one year later, was awarded a Rockefeller grant to attend The Juilliard School. There he completed a master's degree and studied piano with Mieczyslaw Munz and conducting with John Nelson. He then studied orchestral conducting at the Yale School of Music under Otto-Werner Mueller and received a doctor of musical arts degree.

Ling founded the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in 1981, and served as its first Music Director from 1981-1984. Ling was on the conducting roster of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1984-2005, serving as Resident Conductor from 1985-2002. During that time, he also founded the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and was its first music director from 1986-1993. From 2000-2005, Ling was Music Director of the Blossom Music Festival, the last person to serve with that title.^[1]

From 1988-2002, Ling was Music Director of the Florida Orchestra, and is now its Music Director Laureate. Since 2004, he has been the Music Director of the San Diego Symphony, with an initial contract for 5 years^[2].

Ling has been married twice. He and his late first wife, Jane, had two sons, Gabriel and Daniel^[3]. His second wife, since 2001^[4], is the pianist Jessie Chang, and they have two daughters^[5].

Preceded by Irwin Hoffman	Music Director, Florida Orchestra 1988–2002	Succeeded by Stefan Sanderling
Preceded by Jung-Ho Pak	Music Director, San Diego Symphony 2004–	Succeeded by incumbent