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Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra Appoints Dane Lam as Music Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HAWAI‘I SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA APPOINTS DANE LAM AS MUSIC DIRECTOR
Lam is the first music director in the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra’s 10-year history
HONOLULU, HI – Jan. 17, 2023 – The Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra (HSO) announced the appointment of Chinese-Australian conductor Dane Lam as the HSO’s music director. Lam’s appointment was ratified unanimously today at a special HSO board meeting. Lam will serve as the first music director in the HSO’s 10-year history. His five-year contract will begin with the launch of the 2023-2024 concert season.
“It was clear from the start that Dane and the symphony shared the same vision in growing what an orchestra can mean to its community,” said Paul Kosasa, the HSO’s board chair. “His forward-thinking personality builds on the vision and commitment of our symphony as fiscally sound, artistically innovative, and a cultural pillar of our community. Dane’s curiosity, his creativity, and his willingness to ask ‘what is next?’ will strengthen our commitment to excellence and access, and guarantee an exciting journey and future for the HSO.”
As the HSO music director, Lam will provide overall creative leadership to the 84-member orchestra in service of HSO’s mission of enriching Hawai‘i through great live music and serving as the premier provider of the symphonic art forms throughout the Pacific. Functioning as the chief artistic director of the orchestra, Lam will oversee selection of the HSO’s performance repertoire for each concert season, organize performances by guest artists and conductors, and shape the artistic identity of the orchestra both on and off the stage.
“From my first visit to Hawai‘i I was completely beguiled by the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, by the community, and by these islands that bookend the Pacific with my native Australia,” said Lam. “I am constantly moved by the musicians’ vibrancy and commitment to the sound, their collaborative nature and willingness to plumb the emotional and technical depths of the music. Every moment on the podium I felt a meeting of minds and hearts as we rehearsed and performed great masterpieces in a way that connected with our audiences. I believe an orchestra at its best should reflect and define its community and I am proud to be joining an orchestra that embodies this philosophy.”
Lam will spearhead existing and new community engagement initiatives, including working to expand HSO’s music education programs such as the Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds and Symphony of the Hawai‘i Forests. By becoming the leading orchestral program in the Pacific, HSO will strive to bring the transformational power of music to hundreds of thousands of keiki (children).
“Over the years, I’ve come to know Dane as someone not only gifted with incredible artistic insight and conducting prowess, but also someone who understands the power a symphony orchestra can have in positively shaping a community,” said Dave Moss, president & CEO of HSO. “Dane is the right choice for Hawai‘i’s orchestra because he is committed to engaging our diverse community in the power of music making and exploring what music and storytelling means for our identity as a Pacific people.”
In addition, as conductor, Lam will be on the podium 10 out of the 18 weeks of the HSO’s 2023-2024 concert season. He will conduct some of HSO’s most anticipated upcoming performances in both the Masterworks and HapaSymphony concerts, including a 2023-2024 season closing reprise of Michael-Thomas Foumai’s Raise Hawaiki, a monumental work for chorus and orchestra celebrating the return of Hokule?a from the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage in 2017.
Lam will continue to serve as principal conductor and artistic director of China’s Xi’an Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held since 2014. Hawai‘i was first introduced to Lam and his spirited conducting in March of 2022 in his American debut in a performance of Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 at the Hawaii Theatre. Lam was immediately reengaged and opened the symphony’s Masterworks series this past October at Moanalua Performing Arts Center with Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
In March 2020, a committee made up of HSO board members, musicians and staff was convened to embark on a global search for its first music director. “Our search was exhaustive and thorough,” said Jason Kravitt, chair of the search committee. “We recruited representatives for the search committee from our many constituencies and considered every dimension of numerous candidates with a diversity of background and experience. However, from the start Dane’s candidacy stood out and we quickly reached a unanimous and enthusiastic conclusion.”
Dane Lam Biography
Chinese-Australian conductor Dane Lam is music director designate of the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra (assuming the post of music director in July 2023) and principal conductor and artistic director of the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra.
In the current season Lam conducts new productions of Carmen for West Australian Opera (directed by Stuart Maunder) and for Scottish Opera (directed by John Fulljames). Future plans include his return to the Melbourne and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, and further concerts with the HSO and XSO.
He was the first conductor in the history of Opera Queensland to be honored with an official position when he was appointed their associate music director and resident conductor in December 2020 - a role he served in until January 2023. During his tenure he conducted productions of Le nozze di Figaro and La traviata, which followed his previous successes at the company with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and the world premiere of Jonathan Henderson's Dirty Apple. He also led the company in innovative projects in unconventional venues such as the Festival of Outback Opera in regional Queensland and Songs of Love and War in an industrial foundry.
Lam led the orchestral revival in Australia following the initial Covid-lockdown and conducted the first (as well as consecutive) performances in front of live audiences for Opera Queensland, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He also conducted the Sydney and West Australian Symphony Orchestras in concert, as well as the inaugural production of the National Opera in Canberra, La clemenza di Tito. He was nominated as Artist of the Year by Limelight Magazine in 2021.
Elsewhere, Lam has appeared with Opera Australia (La bohème, Don Giovanni), Scottish Opera (La traviata, The Rake’s Progress), Opera Holland Park (Cilea’s L’arlesiana, Così fan tutte, Il barbiere di Siviglia , Don Giovanni, Aida, Norma, Mascagni’s Iris and Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Dunedin, Beijing, Suzhou, Kunming and Shandong Symphony Orchestras, Munich Radio Orchestra, Het Residentie Orkest, City of London Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata, Southbank Sinfonia, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn and the Verbier Festival Orchestra.
Under Lam’s artistic direction and stewardship, the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra almost doubled its classical subscription offering and attendance, raising the artistic standard and profile of the orchestra to attract such artists as Jose Carreras, Sumi Jo, Midori Goto, Barry Douglas, Angela Hewitt, Stephen Hough, Ning Feng, Kirill Gerstein, and Yundi Li. As well as a wide-ranging symphonic repertoire and Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler symphony cycles, Lam has conducted Xi’ans first staged performances of Tosca, Le nozze di Figaro and Candide.
Born in Brisbane, Australia to an Australian mother and a Singaporean-Chinese father, Lam played piano, clarinet, and saxophone as a child, and studied conducting under Gwyn Roberts at the University of Queensland. Following an assistantship and three years of study with Gianluigi Gelmetti, then chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Lam attained his Masters from The Juilliard School on a full scholarship under James DePreist before undertaking a Junior Fellowship in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music under Sir Mark Elder, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron. A protégé of the late Kurt Masur, Lam held the post as his assistant conductor at the Orchestre National de France.
Lam is an international ambassador of the Royal Northern College of Music. In 2021, he was appointed an associate lecturer at the University of Queensland, where he has taken the University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra in new and exciting directions within and outside the university community and has been tasked with establishing an elite conducting program.
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About Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra - Facebook | Instagram
Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra (HSO) connects Hawai‘i through great live music, serving as the premier provider of the symphonic art forms throughout the Pacific. The HSO, which performs at the Historic Hawaii Theatre, is one of the most engaged orchestras in the nation. The HSO reaches 140,000 residents annually in Hawai‘i and the Pacific through its performances and educational programs, which serve more than 3,175 students annually. The Symphony produces over 50 performances in each season throughout O‘ahu, including the Halekulani Masterworks Series and HapaSymphony Series, and an annual summer festival – the Sheraton Starlight Series – at the Waikiki Shell.
CONTACTS:
Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra:
Stryker Weiner & Yokota Public Relations, Inc.
Krislyn Hashimoto
(808) 523-8802
Lance Aquino
(808) 398-0657
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