HAN Xiaoguang is a horn player and resident teacher at the Tianjin Juilliard School.

HAN started his horn studies at the age of 13 and entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music the following year as a student with special talent, where he studied with famous horn player HAN Xianguang (his father). During his school days, he underwent high-intensity training under rigorous standards, thus laying a solid foundation for his performances. HAN has participated in the “Shanghai Spring International Music Festival” (SSIMF) concert for soloists.

In 1987, HAN took up the post of Principal Horn in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO), working with Choo Hoey, first director of the orchestra, for ten years and the orchestra’s previous music director SHUI Lan, for 22 years. In 2003, he began his tenure as Professor of Horn at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. With nine years at the Beijing Central Orchestra (now China National Symphony Orchestra) and 33 years with the SSO, he has a total of 42 years of experience in orchestras and 17 years of teaching experience, producing many horn talents for symphony orchestras in China, spread including in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

HAN had been with the SSO for over 33 years. As the last protégé of Gerd Seifert, former Principal Horn of Berliner Philharmoniker, he was influenced by him. After his retirement, Seifert served as Guest Principal Horn of the SSO from 2007 to 2009, where he coached HAN meticulously. Seifert was known for his rigorous standards. He helped HAN’s technique to improve by leaps and bounds, exerting a profound influence over him.

As a horn player, HAN has performed two horn concertos by Richard Strauss and a horn concerto by Mozart with the SSO. He has also performed numerous chamber music works.

As a guest performer, he has also collaborated regularly with other foreign orchestras, including the Munich Radio Orchestra, Dortmund Symphony Orchestra, and German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with renowned conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta.

In August 2020, he took an honorary retirement from the SSO and began his tenure as resident horn teacher in the Graduate and Pre-college Departments of the Tianjin Juilliard School.

The China Horn Ensemble originated in Beijing in 2015. In view of the more mature musical environment in China, MAN Yi, a teacher of horn at the Central Conservatory of Music, founded the “China Horn Ensemble” in order to develop China’s horn industry and provide music lovers with the most wonderful music. The initiative soon struck a chord with outstanding Chinese hornists from at home and abroad. Later in the autumn of 2015, this group of excellent Chinese musicians, from at home or abroad, holding a common ideal in their hearts, established the energetic horn ensemble. The China Horn Ensemble has become one of the country’s best chamber music groups, and remains active on the international stage.

In recent years, the horn industry has achieved rapid development in China, with Chinese hornists receiving greater attention on the domestic and international stages. These outstanding musicians, some of them working abroad and others teaching at Chinese art institutes, have emerged as the backbone of the Chinese horn art. In addition to professors and outstanding musicians from first-class Chinese music colleges, the Ensemble has other members who are world-renowned principal hornists that work for top-level foreign orchestras. Such a lineup is not only high-skilled and full of vitality, but indicative of that Chinese horn ensembles have been brought in line with the top international musical environment and won a place on the international musical stage.

The China Horn Ensemble has a well-prepared repertoire in which there are ancient and modern Chinese and foreign styles of music including classical music, romantic music, jazz, tango, and film music, etc., all of which may be rendered at one concert. The Ensemble released their first album in 2016, hoping to share their sincere passion for music with more music lovers. It’s believable that a combination of such top performers and classical masterpieces will deliver a distinctive and innovative experience to music lovers, enabling them to appreciate the unique and fascinating charm of the horn.

China NCPA Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Beijing. Since its founding in 2010, the orchestra has fast established itself as one of the most adventurous and dynamic orchestras in the country and earned an international reputation through extensive performances abroad.

Numerous world-renowned artists have collaborated with the orchestra, including Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph Eschenbach, Fabio Luisi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leif Segerstam, Gunter Herbig, Shao-Chia Lu, Xian Zhang, Rudolf Buchbinder, Stephen Kovacevich, Khatia Buniatishvili, Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Haochen Zhang, Kyung-Wha Chung, Vadim Repin, Siqing Lu, NING Feng, Jian Wang, Gautier Capucon, Alison Balsom, Sabine Meyer, Placido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Renee Fleming among many others. Lorin Maazel worked closely with the orchestra before his passing and praised the musicians for their “amazing professionalism and great passion in music”. Christoph Eschenbach also declared it as “one of the finest orchestras in Asia”.

Over the years, the orchestra has gained critical acclaim for its artistic excellence in both concerts and operas. To date they have played in over 60 NCPA opera productions, including classical repertoires such as

Over the years, the orchestra has gained critical acclaim for its artistic excellence in both concerts and operas. To date they have played in over 60 NCPA opera productions, including classical repertoires such as Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Aida, Otello, Nabucco, Tosca, Turandot, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, and newly commissioned works Rickshaw Boy, The Long March, Fang Zhimin, The Jinsha River, Visitors on the Snow Mountain and The Dawns Here Are Quiet. Their live recording of The Ring without Words with its creator, Lorin Maazel, was released on SONY Music worldwide, the only recording the great maestro ever made with an orchestra from China. In 2019, the orchestra’s recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was awarded "Best Orchestral Album" at the 2018 Chinese Audiophile Vinyl Award. In 2021, the NCPAO released Beethoven’s Egmont becoming the first Chinese orchestra to record this masterpiece. In celebration of the decade tenure of its Music Director LÜ Jia, the orchestra released two albums in 2022, including Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 and a selection of live recordings conducted by LÜ Jia In July 2023, the NCPAO released the recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3.

The orchestra has consistently offered creative and diverse programmes through its concert season. As part of its continuous efforts to promote contemporary music, the orchestra presented the China Premieres of major works by John Adams, Toru Takemitsu et al. and gave the World Premieres of dozens of substantial new orchestral works commissioned from composers across the globe, including Qigang Chen, ZHAO Jiping, Michael Gordon, Kalevi Aho, et al. It has also played a significant role in the NCPA's Young Composers Programme, providing a unique platform nurturing the next generation of composers in China.

Alongside its concert series, the orchestra has received widespread praise for its international appearances at the Kissingen Summer Music Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and concerts in many cities in Germany, as well as in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul, Daegu, Abu Dhabi, Taipei and Macau. In 2014, the orchestra undertook its first North American tour and returned in 2017, where it performed at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Davies Symphony Hall and other major venues in the US and Canada, under the baton of LÜ Jia. Musical America praised its “joyful confidence and youthful strength”. Concerto Net described it as “a polished, first rate ensemble”. In 2021, they appeared in "See Me: A Global Concert" along with world-wide artists, orchestras and choirs as part of the Opening Ceremony of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda virtual event. In 2022, the orchestra recorded for the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, accompanying billions of viewers to witness the lighting of the Olympic flame. In April 2023, musicians from the orchestra visited South America performing joint concerts with Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil and Instituto Superior de Arte de Teatro Colon in Argentina.

With its commitment to educational and outreach activities, the orchestra has presented a series of Weekend Matinee Concerts at its home venue, providing local audience specially selected programmes and accessible ticket prices. The orchestra also frequently initiates wide-reaching educational projects in association with educational institutions across the city. In 2020, the orchestra launched an online concert series in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic drawing an average audience of 30 million viewers. April 2021 saw the orchestra complete their first six-city national tour, which Music Weekly praised as "a series of sophisticated programs in concerts that blew the roof off,” followed by the second national tour in March 2023.

In February 2012, LÜ Jia took up the post of Chief Conductor, succeeding Zuohuang Chen, NCPA’s then Artistic Director of Music as well as a founder of the orchestra. In January 2017, LÜ Jia started serving as NCPA's Artistic Director of Music and the NCPA Orchestra's Music Director. In 2022, LAI Jiajing and SUN Yifan were appointed as assistant conductors.