China NCPA Orchestra

China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra

Music Director: LÜ Jia

Conductor Laureate: Zuohuang Chen

Principal Guest Conductor: Xian Zhang

Resident Conductor: LAI Jiajing

As the resident orchestra to China National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Beijing Performing Arts Centre, NCPA Orchestra shapes the music life in Beijing and nationwide.

In a typical 48-week se

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China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra

Music Director: LÜ Jia

Conductor Laureate: Zuohuang Chen

Principal Guest Conductor: Xian Zhang

Resident Conductor: LAI Jiajing

As the resident orchestra to China National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Beijing Performing Arts Centre, NCPA Orchestra shapes the music life in Beijing and nationwide.

In a typical 48-week season, NCPAO brings 100+ stellar live performances to around 200 thousand audience. Our mission is to integrate artistic creation and humanity, to make the music a bridge between past and present, between east and west, and between arts and realities. We are also devoted to develop the art of opera in China to a higher level of recognition, with our rich experience in opera production among the Asian orchestras.

In the past 15 years, we have had the honour to collaborate with numerous world-renowned conductors and soloists, including Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph Eschenbach, Fabio Luisi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniele Gatti, Hannu Lintu, Jaap Van Zweden, Shao-Chia Lu, Xian Zhang, Rudolf Buchbinder, Khatia Buniatishvili, Behzod Abduraimov, Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Sa Chen, Kyung-Wha Chung, Siqing Lu, Gautier Capucon, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Hui He among many others.

We’ve made tours to many of the music destinations worldwide such as Berlin, Hamberg, Nuremberg, Kissingen, Koblenz, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Seoul, Daegu, Singapore, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Ann Arbor, Church Hill, San Francisco, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Edinburgh, Saffron and Santander, etc.. In 2014, the orchestra undertook its first North American tour and returned in 2017, where it performed at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Davies Symphony Hall and other major venues in the US and Canada, under the baton of LÜ Jia. In 2021, 2023 and 2025, the orchestra conducted China tours that bring the best of NCPA Orchestra to audiences nationwide. In 2024 the orchestra conducted a tour to Russia and performed on the stage of the Marinsky Theatre. In March of 2025, the orchestra was invited to perform the closing concert of the 53rd Hongkong Arts Festival, as the first orchestra from mainland China to be on the stage of the HK festival in 25 years. In August 2025, the orchestra finished its first European tour, making official appearance to the Elbphilharmonie Summer, Edinburgh Festival and Festival Internacional de Santander.

In 2022, the orchestra recorded for the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, accompanying billions of viewers to witness the lighting of the Olympic flame.

Lately the orchestra has been working on marketing through online streams and social medias, thus to give our audience more access to our performances. Many of our archives are broadcasting through 40+ TV stations, major online channels and medias for an average of 20 millions audience worldwide each performance. The orchestra is also sharing the “behind-the-scene” stories and Artists interviews trough our official account on major platforms. In collaboration with record label NCPA Classics, the orchestra has published 60+ online records, some have won important awards. The complete set of recordings of Bruckner’s symphonies was released by the end of 2024, receiving warm accolades from the international community of classical music, making a milestone for the orchestra as well as the classical music world in China.

With the opening of Beijing Performing Arts Centre in December 2023, the orchestra has shifted to ‘dual-core’ operation. We will keep expanding the musician group in the coming several years to accommodate the change.

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