Muhai Tang

The invitation from Herbert von Karajan to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra launched Muhai Tang's Western career. Several chief conductor and music director positions across Europe followed. He maintains a presence in China as conductor laureate of the China National Symphony Orchestra in Beijing. Western opera reached Chinese stages in part through his pioneering efforts. A 2024 release of Mozart's two piano concertos, recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, forms part of his substantial discography.

Shanghai was the site of his birth in 1949. The family name Tang comes from his father, filmmaker Tang Xiaodan, and his brother is writer and painter Tang Muli. His parents gave him his earliest musical instruction. Later he trained in conducting and composition at the Shanghai Conservatory, which supplied many of the first Chinese musicians allowed to study in the West during the 1970s. At Munich's Hochschule für Musik he studied with Hermann Michael. Karajan engaged him to lead the Berlin Philharmonic in the 1983-1984 season and extended a subsequent invitation. Those concerts produced a long-term appointment as chief conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon from 1988 to 2001, plus chief conductor of DePhilharmonie, later renamed the Antwerp Philharmonic, in Belgium from 1991 to 1995, and chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, now the Queensland Orchestra, in the 1990s. Opera conducting began for him at the San Francisco Opera in 1988. His recording debut occurred in 1991 on the album Werner Heider: Mein Klavier und ich, Vol. 2, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

New-century posts included chief conductor of the Finnish National Opera from 2003 to 2006, principal conductor and artistic director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra from 2006 to 2011, and chief conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic from 2010 to 2015. Guest-conducting engagements have continued without interruption. A Grammy Award in 2002 honored his Teldec recording with the Gulbenkian Orchestra of works by Christopher Rouse. Italy's La Scala entrusted him in 2015 with the first new production led by a Chinese conductor, Rossini's Otello. In China he has directed many operas, including the Chinese premieres of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and Britten's The Turn of the Screw, and from 2017 onward he launched a cycle of Wagner's Ring operas presented one per year. He also conducted the Chinese and Western premieres of Enjott Schneider's opera Marco Polo. Appearances with the China National Symphony Orchestra continue, and he serves there as conductor laureate. Recordings exist with multiple orchestras he has led. In 2024 he directed the English Chamber Orchestra, with pianists Fiammetta Tarli and Ivo Varbanov, on a best-selling Orchid Classics album containing two Mozart piano concertos. His catalog, including compilations, then totaled roughly fifty albums.