It all begins in 1983.

After becoming a national celebrity at the young age of 17, as China’s first ever international violin competition prize winner (Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki, 1980), Hu Kun studied conducting for one year with Prof. Xu Xin at the Central Conservatory of Music in 1983. Kun was then sent as an official student to Gstaad, Switzerland, at the Menuhin Academy in 1984. He made his conducting debut in Geneva by accident, when he stood in at the last minute to conduct his teacher Alberto Lysy in 1985.

Hu Kun’s extraordinarily successful career as a solo violinist continued to flourish as he played all over the world, winning major competitions and performing with the world’s leading orchestras, until 2003, when he resumed his conducting, this time under the private guidance of Sir Colin Davis.

Sir Colin not only generously gave Kun private lessons, but he also gifted him a baton from his personal collection after their first meeting. Together, they worked on some major repertoires…

In 2005, Kun went on to set up his own orchestra “Hu Kun and Friends”, under the patronage of Sir Colin Davis and Mrs. Zamira Menuhin. It was launched in London, when he conducted the orchestra for a gala concert at the Chinese Embassy, hosted by His Excellency the Chinese Ambassador with great success. Kun was interviewed by the BBC World Service and Phoenix TV Europe.

He then conducted the London Schubert Players at the Classicalive Exhibition at Olympia London, and a critically acclaimed concert at the South Bank Centre in 2006. Kun had a sell-out debut tour in China, where he conducted Till Eulenspiegel with the Xiamen Philharmonic, which was praised by Chinese legendary female conductor Zheng Xiaoyin. He went on conducting Beethoven and Mozart Symphonies with Xinhai, Sichuan, Guangzhou Conservatory Symphony Orchestras, and Linhua Chamber Orchestra in Shanghai, in April 2006. He made his successful Beijing conducting debut with the China National Broadcasting & Film Symphony Orchestra at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in July 2007. He conducted further concerts with the orchestra in July 2008.

After hearing about the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, Kun immediately flew to China to conduct the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra, performing a charity concert in Beijing.

“

Hu Kun, conducting with Enescu’s own baton, brought clarity of line and spaciousness to the first movement, then revealed in the highly complex contrapuntal fugal scoring of the second movement that acts as a massive developmental section together with the exquisitely nuanced third movement. The waltz ending […] showed powerful thoughts held under purposeful restraint […] which allowed individual voices to integrate seamlessly into the whole.”

— MusicWeb International, London (2006)