(Photo: CNA)
According to the Ministry of Culture, the National Cultural Award, established in 1980, is “a lifetime achievement award that honors those who have made special contributions to the maintenance or enhancement of culture, and is the highest honor for an individual in the cultural community.”
As a Hsinchu-born Hakka, Lü is concerned with Hakka affairs. Hired by the Executive Yuan last December, Lü serve as a board member of the Hakka Public Communication Foundation to promote Hakka culture and language. In recent years, the conductor has been actively engaged in composing Hakka music in the form of symphony to show the new image of Taiwanese Hakka to the world.
(Photo: CNA)
Lü started his conducting career as principal conductor of Komische Oper Berlin in 1995. He was invited to work with English National Opera in Britain, Norway Royal Opera, Göteborgsoperan in Swede, Opera Australia, Royal Theatre of La Monnaie in Belgium, as well as Stuttgart Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Hamburgische Staatsoper in Germany, from 1996 to 1998.
Lü served as the music director of Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonia between 1998 and 2004 and was given the “Peter Cornelius Plakette” prize by the Cultural Minister of Rheinland for his notable contribution in local culture in 2004.
In 2010, Lü returned to Taiwan as the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), and NSO made him an honorary conductor in 2021.
(Photo: CNA)
Lü has won awards at international conducting competitions over the past 30 years, including the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors in France in 1988, the Pedrotti International Competition for Orchestra Conductors in Italy in 1991, and the International Kiril Kondrashin Competition for Conductors in the Netherlands in 1994.
In his award acceptance speech, Lü said that when he returned to Taiwan in 2010 to serve as the music director of NSO, he felt more responsibility at home than abroad. As symphony orchestras in the East have made progress and become mature, Lü hopes that Taiwan’s orchestras with rich history and diverse culture will be recognized by the world.