Fan, Lei

Regarded as an icon of China's rise in the world of classical music, Fan Lei is in constant demand as a soloist, recitalist and music pedagogue around the world. 

A native of Qingdao, China, Fan Lei left home at the age of twelve to study music at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He would go on to study with some of the world’s finest clarinetists including Tao Chunxiao, Su Jianpei, Elsa Ludwig Verdehr, Lawrence McDonald, David Shifrin, Fred Ormand, and Kalmen Opperman, and receive degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Yale University. In 1985, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Chinese National Clarinet Competition, during which he was chosen to represent the People’s Republic of China at the Toulon International Competition in France, where he also won honors. He would later win top prize at the International Young Clarinetist Competition in Seattle, Washington and was a finalist in the 1991 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. A sought after chamber musician, Fan Lei collaborates frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Muir, Shanghai, and Beijing String Quartets, Edgar Meyer, and woodwind players Patrick Gallois and David Shifrin. He has appeared in several national television and radio broadcasts around the world as well as the documentary film Melody from the Heart, which China’s CCTV first aired in 2012. He was the Principal Clarinetist of the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, a visiting artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts from 1999 to 2007, and recently performed at the Aggasi International Chamber Music Festival. 

After 16 years as tenured professor of clarinet at Lawrence University, where Fan Lei served as the tenured Chair of the Wind, Brass and Percussion Department, he joined the faculty as professor of clarinet at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. At CCOM, he serves as a member of the Academic Committee and became China's first doctoral tutor for clarinet performance. In addition to his appointment at CCOM, he holds permanent visiting professorships at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music and Shenyang Conservatory of Music. In 2016, Fan was a visiting professor at Oberlin Conservatory and in 2017 he was a visiting professor at Yale University. He regularly teaches master classes at institutions such as the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, National College of Arts, the Interlochen Arts Academy, the China Army Music Academy, Yale University, Arizona State University,  and the National Taiwan University of Arts. From 2012 to 2016, Fan taught as part of the artist faculty at the Morningside Music Bridge International Music Festival, a month-long summer music institute for young musicians of extraordinary talent. 

Fan Lei has worked tirelessly to broaden the audience for woodwind music and to nurture its community of artists and patrons. He is the author of the multi-volume work "Introduction to Clarinet", a series of fundamental pedagogic studies for clarinet that was published by People's Publishing House in 2020. Fan is a Yangtze River Scholar candidate and has previously taught at the Canadian Panax Art Center. He is president of the China Clarinet Research Society, a department of the China Symphony Development Foundation, and is the founding Chair and Artistic Director of the Central Conservatory of Music Chamber Music Festival, the International Wind & Percussion Music Festival, the Xi’an International Clarinet and Saxophone Festival, and the Mozart International Clarinet Competition. In 2010, he was awarded a 1 million RMB grant from the National Scholar Bureau to expand several of these initiatives. An active adjudicator, Fan has served as a jury member for the Beijing International Clarinet Competition, the Belgium International Clarinet Competition, the Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition in Germany, the National Arts Club Clarinet Competition of New York City, the Chinese Music Golden Bell Awards, and the Beijing International Youth Clarinet Competition. Fan is an avid advocate of new composers, premiering Penderecki’s Sextet in North America and James Cohen’s Three Pieces for Clarinet. 

With a firm belief in the importance of paying forward the art of his instrument, Fan dedicates a substantial amount of time toward teaching the future stars of his craft. In recent years, his students have won numerous awards in several of the world’s leading competitions: First place in the Carmel International Chamber Music Competition in the United States; third prize in the 2007 Geneva Competition; fourth place in the 2010 Belgian International Clarinet Competition. In 2014 his students won the gold medal, the silver medal, the bronze medal and the excellence award at the 2014 Golden Bell Award Clarinet Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia and second place in the 2017 Italian "Saverio Mercadante" International Clarinet Competition. In the 14th Saverio Mercadante International Clarinet Competition Youth Group in 2018, three of his students won all three top prizes, noteworthy for being the first time China won all top prizes at a leading international clarinet competition. Two of his students won first prize at the annual Central Conservatory of Music Competition in 2014, 2015, and 2018. Those two students also separately won gold medals in the Youth Category of the World Clarinet Association Competition in 2019. His students have frequently been admitted with full merit-based scholarships at world-renowned music colleges like the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Yale University, the Juilliard School, and others. They have gone on to excel as acclaimed performers and educators in their own right, holding positions at various universities and professional ensembles. Fan’s work as an educator has garnered him numerous awards for excellence in teaching. He won the annual Central Conservatory of Music’s Instructor Award for Innovations in Teaching for three years in a row and the Overseas Distinguished Faculty Award of the China Ministry of Education from 2010 to 2015. In 2018 and 2019, he was awarded the Golden School Emblem Award, CCOM’s highest pedagogical accolade.