Sam Lee 李聖傑 – One Day World Tour
Creative Music Director, Producer and Arranger

My working relationship with Sam Lee, one of Taiwan’s most established Mandopop artists with over two decades of ballads that have defined the genre across Asia, began in late 2018 with a single arrangement. Three months of remote collaboration passed without the concept resolving. I flew to Taipei to work with him directly, and within three hours in the studio, we found it. That first song became the foundation of a creative partnership that would span several years.

In late 2019, I attended a rehearsal for Sam’s major comeback concert in Taipei. There was no opening sequence, the show began directly with the first track, performed as it appeared on the single. A concert is not a playlist. It is an experience with an architecture, and the opening is the doorway the audience walks through before they know what kind of room they are entering. I designed and arranged an extended intro overnight in my hotel room, and it was ready for the next rehearsal.

Over the years that followed, the creative relationship deepened beyond individual projects. Sam would increasingly consult me on music direction and broader creative decisions, questions that extended past any single song or production. Trust, in this work, is built slowly and earned through consistency.

In 2023, that relationship led to an invitation to serve as Creative Music Director for his One Day World Tour. I was involved in hiring the music director and assembling the band. Working closely with the artist, I developed the narrative arc of the concert and designed its key sequences, the opening, the emotional peaks, the ending. I also acted as the artist’s eyes and ears across departments, contributing to decisions on lighting, visuals, and on-the-ground promotional strategies. The tour ran across approximately twenty shows over the course of a year, travelling through China, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore, to audiences ranging from 3,000 to 10,000.