Ken Lam - Biography
Ken was a featured conductor in the League of American Orchestra’s 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview with the Nashville Symphony and made his US professional debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in June 2008 as one of four conductors selected by Leonard Slatkin. Last season he gave concerts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. In the US he has also worked with the St Louis and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras. He was Principal Conductor of the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra from 2001-2007.
In opera, he regularly directs productions of the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard and was Assistant Conductor at both Cincinnati Opera and Baltimore Lyric Opera. He was Assistant Conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival for two Britten chamber opera productions. His recent production of Massenet’s Manon at Peabody Conservatory was hailed by the Baltimore Sun as "among the best Peabody Opera ventures, overall, of the past decade."
Also active in choral music, Ken has been Artistic Director of Hong Kong Voices since 2000 and directed the choral program at the University of Hong Kong for three years before moving to the US in 2005.
Passionate about education, Ken is conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra. He works regularly with students throughout the tri-state area and led the Kentucky All-State Orchestra at KMEA 2011. As Education Artistic Director of the World Piano Competition he plans and hosts all of their educational outreach activities throughout the year. As Resident Conductor of Brevard Music Center he works with both their college and high school orchestras and collaborates with faculty and students of the composition department regularly.
His conducting teachers are Gustav Meier, Markand Thakar, Marin Alsop and Edward Polochick at Peabody Conservatory. He studied with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen for three summers and was nominated for the Aspen/Glimmerglass Opera Prize. He was also a two-time fellow at the National Conducting Institute studying with Leonard Slatkin.
He read economics at St. John's College, Cambridge University and was a practicing solicitor specializing in asset finance for ten years with the international law firm Clifford Chance and was a director and manager at the classical label Naxos.
He is also a keen golfer and tennis player and was a past president of the Cambridge University Chinese Society.
October 26, 2011
Hong Kong Voices, after the first Hong Kong performance of the London version of Brahms' Requiem.