Hancheng Guo | Conductor
Chinese conductor Hancheng Guo won Second Prize at both the Nicola Zoraqi International Conducting Competition in Albania and the Gürer Aykal International Conducting Competition in Türkiye. His work spans orchestral, operatic, and contemporary repertoire, including opera productions at China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts and participation in the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy. His engagements in the 2026/27 season include concerts with the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality Symphony Orchestra in Türkiye and the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra in Bulgaria.
Chinese conductor Hancheng Guo won Second Prize at the Nicola Zoraqi International Conducting Competition in Albania in 2025 and the Gürer Aykal International Conducting Competition in Türkiye in 2026. His engagements in the 2026/27 season include concerts with the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality Symphony Orchestra in Türkiye and the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra in Bulgaria.
He has worked with orchestras across China and Europe, including the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Hof Symphony Orchestra, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Albanian Radio Television Symphony Orchestra, Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, and Guiyang Symphony Orchestra.
Opera holds an important place in his musical life. He has participated in numerous productions as a conductor, assistant conductor, and chorus master at leading Chinese venues, including the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Shaanxi Grand Theatre, and Shangyin Opera House. These productions include Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro, Verdi’s La traviata, Puccini’s Turandot, Zhang Qianyi’s The Wild Rhododendron, and Love Song of Kangding by Zhou Xianglin and Ding Ying. In 2025, he was selected for the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in Milan, where he studied Mozart’s Don Giovanni under Muti’s guidance and conducted the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in performance.
Alongside his orchestral and operatic work, Guo maintains an interest in contemporary music. He has conducted the ASEAN Contemporary Ensemble at the Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival and has been invited to the China–ASEAN Music Week on several occasions, including to conduct the final concert of the Huashan Cup Composition Competition.
He places equal importance on understanding a work as a whole and engaging with its emotional life. Through open, sincere communication with the orchestra, he seeks to make the music speak to listeners.
Guo began his conducting studies at the middle school affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and graduated from the Conservatory in 2024. His teachers included Professors Daye Lin, Music Director of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, and Guoyong Zhang, Chairman of the Chinese Musicians Association. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the University of Music Würzburg with Finnish conductor Ari Rasilainen.
He has also received guidance from Jorma Panula, John Axelrod, Martin Sieghart, Ronald Zollman, William Boughton, Ulrich Windfuhr, Mark Gibson, David Hayes, Georg Christoph Sandmann, Lü Jia, Yang Yang, Pu-Qi Jiang, and Xiaoou Zhao.
