Born in Penghu, Taiwan, conductor Yu-An Chang was awarded first prize at the 2016 International conducting competition Jeunesses Musicales in Bucharest, Romania. In 2016 he became music director and chief conductor of the Asia Nova Symphony Orchestra; in 2009 he founded the Youth Sinfonietta of Taipei, which he led until 2013.

Along with his master class conducting studies at Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, Yu-An works regularly with orchestras in Germany (Frankfurt Staatsorchester, Brandenburg Sinfoniker, Konzerthausorchester Berlin), Hungary, Romania (George Enescu Philharmonic), and Taiwan (National Chinese Orchestra). In 2015 he led the German premiere of Tobias Broström’s percussion concerto, Arena, with Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and was one of the finalists in the Besançon international conducting competition. In 2011 he won a Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation conducting scholarship.

Yu-An also devotes himself intensively to contemporary music and Chinese traditional music repertoire. He has premiered and recorded numerous pieces by young composers, and was selected as the outstanding conductor at the 2011 Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival (where he worked with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier). In summer 2018 he will be a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Yu-An and his wife Kai-Chuan now live in Berlin.