Ken Lam - Biography

Ken is currently a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Conservatory studying orchestral conducting with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar. He has been appointed Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from the beginning of the 2008-09 season.

In his native Hong Kong, he has been Artistic Director of the chamber choir Hong Kong Voices since 2001. He has also been Principal Conductor of the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra and was Director of the Choral Programme at the University of Hong Kong for three years before leaving Hong Kong to study in the US in 2005. In 2007, he founded the Hong Kong Camerata, Hong Kong Voices, a professional orchestral partner for Hong Kong Voices

Recent conducting highlights include being Assistant/Cover Conductor for Lorin Maazel (Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia) and Gunther Herbig (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra). Ken has also been invited by Leonard Slatkin to participate in the National Conducting Institute in 2007 and 2008 and will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center this June. He attended the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen both in 2006 and 2007 (and was nominated by David Zinman and Murry Sidlin for the Aspen/Glimmerglass Opera Prize last summer) and will spend a third summer at Aspen this June.

Hong Kong Voices, after the first Hong Kong performance of the London version of Brahms' Requiem.

In addition to his conducting, he holds an MA in economics from Cambridge University and has been a practising solicitor with the international law firm Clifford Chance for ten years specialising in asset finance. He has also been a director and manager at the classical record label Naxos.

He is also a keen golfer and tennis player, and a past president of the Cambridge University Chinese Society.