Han Xiao-Ming
Prof. Xiaoming Han French horn
Born in 1963 in Shanghai, Han Xiaoming is the son of a horn player. After completing his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing at the age of 17, he continued his studies at the New England Conservatory in the USA through a personal recommendation from Maestro Seiji Ozawa.
Through a DAAD scholarship, he came to Germany in 1984, studied with Ifor James, and graduated from the master class of Otto Schmitz in Munich.
From 1985 to 2007, he was the solo horn player of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Since 2007, he has been a member of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie.
Since 1993, he has held a lifetime professorship in horn at the Hochschule für Musik Saar. From 2009 to 2011 (sabbatical), Han Xiaoming went back to China with his family and took over the leadership of an orchestra at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA).
He is also a consultant for the China National Symphony Orchestra and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. In January 2011, Han Xiaoming was elected by the London jury of the Big Ben Award 2010 as one of the "Ten Outstanding Chinese Young Persons in Germany".
Han Xiao-Ming has worked with many famous conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, and Christoph Eschenbach.
As a solo hornist, he has given numerous guest performances with German radio, symphony, and opera orchestras, such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Broadcasting, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, and the orchestras of the opera houses in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Düsseldorf. In addition, he has given solo and chamber music concerts as well as horn master classes throughout the USA and Europe. His artistic career is completed by numerous invitations to internationally renowned festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the BBC Proms in London, and the Marlboro Festival.
For many years, Han Xiao-Ming has been committed to training Chinese music talents. He works with various German conservatories and has enabled numerous talented Chinese young musicians to pursue further education abroad.
In China, he organized a series of large music festivals with the World Chinese Festival Orchestra and from 2004 to 2010, he organized the Music Festival of the Central Conservatory of Music.
In 2016, he was a member of the horn jury at the ARD Music Competition in Munich.