Assistant Conductor
Lio Kuokman is assistant conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as a “startling conducting talent,” he has worked extensively in both the symphonic and operatic genres. He was the top prize winner of the third Evgeny Svetlanov Conducting Competition in Paris in 2014, for which he also received the audience prize and orchestra prize. Recent appearances have included The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Pan Asia Symphony, Hong Kong Virtuosi, the Taipei Philharmonic, and the Macao Orchestra.
Throughout Asia and the U.S, Mr. Kuokman’s opera repertoire flourishes, having conducted
productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, Bizet’s Carmen, and for Musica Viva Hong Kong, Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, The Daughter of the Regiment, and Lucia di Lammermoor; Puccini’s Turandot; Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana; and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. He has also conducted the Curtis Opera Theatre in a double bill of Rossini’s La scala di seta and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. A proponent of contemporary works he has premiered Chan Hing-Yan’s chamber opera, Heart of Coral, commissioned and produced by the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Mr. Kuokman’s additional festival appearances have included performances at the Beijing International Music Festival, the Cabrillo New Music Festival, the Great Mountain Music Festival (Korea), the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and the Macao International Music Festival.
As a keyboard artist of note, Mr. Kuokman has performed as soloist with the Fort Worth Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, the Bacau Philharmonic (Romania), the China National Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Shanghai Symphony. He has performed with members of Les Arts Florissants at New York’s Lincoln Center, and he is a founding member and president of the Macao Chamber Music Association.
Mr. Kuokman began his musical training at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, from which he graduated with first class honors in piano performance. He continued his graduate
studies receiving a master’s degree from the Juilliard School followed by diplomas in conducting
from the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. For his
contributions to the development of arts and culture, he has received a Certificate of
Commendation from the Hong Kong government and a Medal of Cultural Merit from the
government of Macao.