Eugene Lai

Eugene Lai is a clarinetist, composer, and curator from Taipei, Taiwan. He holds a Master’s degree in bass clarinet from the Prins Claus Conservatorium Groningen, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, and is currently the only Taiwanese to have completed this specialization. His artistic lineage follows the Dutch contemporary bass clarinet tradition established by Harry Sparnaay. He studied clarinet with Chih-Ning Kao, Eugenia Jin, and Pei-Yun Lin, and bass clarinet with Ji-Hsi Chang and Fie Schouten.

During his years in Europe, Lai immersed himself in contemporary music environments and international artistic networks. Through sustained collaboration with orchestral and contemporary musicians, soloists, and composers, he developed a performance practice that moves fluidly between classical and contemporary repertoire, as well as free improvisation. In addition to the clarinet family, he also performs on saxophones and other woodwinds.

Active internationally across Europe and Asia, Lai performs and records as a soloist and chamber musician and collaborates with orchestras including the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Philharmonia, and Philharmonia Moments Musicaux. He has appeared at international platforms such as ClarinetFest®, the European Clarinet Congress, the Sound of Music Contemporary Music Festival (Netherlands), and MENA Groningen. Lai is a recipient of the Hsing-Tian-Kong Award (Taiwan) and was shortlisted for the Messina International Clarinet Competition (Italy). In 2024, he was selected as an artist-in-residence for OneBeat Taiwan.

In recent years, Lai has expanded his artistic practice into chamber music curation, approaching musicians as connective nodes between cultural context, sonic vocabulary, and artistic action. In 2024, he founded Quintette Les Jeux d’Anches and has served as its artistic director since 2025. He is also a member of Ensemble TMAP.

Across performance, composition, arranging, and curatorial work, his practice spans solo, chamber, orchestral, experimental, and improvised music, approaching sound as a medium for cultural memory and artistic inquiry.