It was like American Idol. But for conductors.
Last week some of the world’s top conducting talent met in the Cannon Center and went baton to baton in the first Memphis International Conducting Competition. First-place prize went to Ken Lam, a native of Hong Kong who serves as assistant conductor for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Roger Kalia, a native of New York and music director of the Columbus Symphony in Indiana took the second prize.
Aram Demijrian, a conducting student at the New England Conservatory, won third place.
The three winners split over $11,000 in prize money and in October the three will return to Memphis to conduct pieces by Dvorak, Hindemith and Ravel with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.
UPDATE: I’ve temporarily made these videos private. The musician’s union only allows two minute clips, so I need to edit these down a bit. I don’t know why I thought the competition would be different. Duh. Sorry.
