“Both Zhang Xian and Perry So are rare talents in recent years… his prospects have no limit.“

One of the inaugural Dudamel Conducting Fellows at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Perry So received the first and special prizes at the Fifth International Prokofiev Conducting Competition (held in St Petersburg) in 2008, only the third time the top prize has been awarded. This 2009/10 season includes his Moscow début with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia and his Australian debut with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and two subscription concerts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has just completed an extended six-week residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (conducting four concerts and assisting Lorin Maazel and Vasily Petrenko) and resulting in immediate re-invitation. Other upcoming engagements include debuts with the Milwaukee and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, the Japan Philharmonic, the Noord-Nederlands Orkest and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Oviedo.

In addition to an average of 25 concerts each season in Hong Kong, he has redesigned and spearheaded the orchestra’s outreach and educational programmes. He maintains a close relationship with the State Hermitage Orchestra of Russia with whom he performs annually during the spring and summer festivals in St Petersburg. Other orchestras he has worked with include the St Petersburg Academic Philharmonic Orchestra and Staatskapelle Weimar.

Born in Hong Kong in 1982, he graduated from Yale University in Comparative Literature, where he studied with noted literary scholar Michael Holquist. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was Music Director of the Saybrook Orchestra and the Opera Theater of Yale College, leading productions of Die Zauberflöte, Cosí fan tutte, Giulio Cesare, and Turn of the Screw. He also developed an abiding interest for music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, regularly leading the Yale Collegium Musicum from the harpsichord. He subsequently studied conducting under Swiss pedagogue Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute. He was also a prizewinner at the Mitropoulos Competition in Athens and received a commendation from the Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau for his international musical accomplishments. Perry So founded and directs the Huangshan International Music Festival, set in the mountains of central China. His current mentors include Edo de Waart and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Perry So will become Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra from September 2010.