Chien Wen-pin

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chien (簡).

Chien Wen-Pin (traditional Chinese: 簡文彬, born in 1967) is one of the most active Taiwanese conductors.

Appointed to the Music Director of National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in 2001, Chien was the central artistic force behind its recent innovative seasons. Under his direction, the orchestra has successfully created the annual Subscription Concerts and celebrated its 20th anniversary with Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, the first ever presented on either side of the Taiwan strait and which received high praise from critics worldwide. Leaving as the Music Director of NSO in June 2007, he has been asked to be the orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor. His other positions include resident conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein since 1996/1997 season.

Born in Taipei in 1967, Chien began to study violin, piano and composition at an early age. In 1988 he graduated from National Taiwan Academy of Arts summa cum laude with major in piano, and moved on to complete his master's degree in conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna from 1990 to 1994.

Chien won the first prize at the International La Bottega Conducting Competition in Treviso, Italy, 1992 and the second prize in Douai, France, 1994. He was awarded the only Special Mention in the first Leonard Bernstein Jerusalem International Conducting Competition in Israel, 1995. In the same year he participated in the Pacific Music Festival (PMF) in Sapporo, Japan as assistant conductor, in the following year he conducted the PMF orchestra on tour and made his debut with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra in 1997. From 1998 to 2004, Chien was the Resident Conductor of the PMF Orchestra.

Chien has worked with the Orchestra Filarmonia Veneta, Moravian Philharmonic, Russian Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre Lamoureux, as well as the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. He appeared in Japan with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Already by his late teens, Chien was an invited participant in the opera productions of the Taipei Music Festival. He also conducted the Vienna Chamber Opera in 1995-1996. Recent highlights with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein have included the world premiere of Beuys by Franz Hummel (with performances also in the Wiener Festwochen in June 1998), the German premiere of Drei Schwestern by Peter Eötvös and Richard III by Giorgio Battistelli and the world premiere of Eleni Karaindrou's ballet Phaedra, as well as many revived productions, especially Alban Berg's Wozzeck, the same piece he also conducted at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdamin April 1998. In June 2007, he conducted the tour production of Der Rosenkavalier of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Taipei. He also has appeared as a guest conductor at the Hamburgische Staatsoper and Komische Oper Berlin.