As a “brilliant and commanding” [Leipziger Volkszeitung] conductor with “unmistakable charisma” [Bild], high praise has followed Ken Masur since his conducting debut in 1998. In 1999, Masur co-founded the Columbia University Bach Society Orchestra and Choir and as its first Music Director, regularly led performances of cantatas, oratorios, symphonies, operas, chamber music and choral works from the 17th to the 20th century, appearing at such venues as Miller Theatre, Riverside Church, The 92nd Street Y, the German Consulate General Auditorium and the University Club in Manhattan. Under Masur’s leadership, the Bach Society released its debut CD in 2002, which included works by J.S. Bach as well as symphonies by his two oldest sons, W.F. and C.P.E. Bach. The Bach Society’s 2001 concert tour of Germany was met with critical acclaim, prompting one critic to write about its performance and staging of Händel’s opera Acis and Galatea: „The marvellous score could simply not have been any better realized ”[LVZ]. Masur was also music director of the Columbia Orchestra for Asian Music and in 2002 conducted the Manhattan School of Music Laureate orchestra made up of principal players of the New York Philharmonic and their students. Since the 2004/5 season, Masur has been frequently engaged as Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France, covering such large-scale works as Honnegger’s ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ and Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt.’ In March 2005, Masur was invited to prepare J.S.Bach´s St. Matthew’s Passion with the Chœur de Radio France and the children’s choir, La Maîtrise de Radio France. Subsequent reviews of that concert repeatedly praised the choirs’ performance: “Of the entire production, it was the choruses who shined and did justice to Bach’s masterwork,…[delivering] a penetrating reading of [The Passion’s] heavenly polyphony and powerful balancing of voices” [ResMusica]. Masur has since then been a frequent guest conductor of the Chœur de Radio France, with whom he led its first-time collaboration with the orchestra of the Paris Conservatory in the 2005/06 season opening concert. In 2006, Masur gave a conducting masterclass for the choral conductors of the 4800-member Hong Kong Children’s Choir and collaborated as Assistant Conductor to Sir Colin Davis in Orchestre National de France´s production of Gustav Holst´s ‘The Planets.’ Upcoming concerts include Masur’s debut with the Orchestre National de Toulouse, a program of Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Mendelssohn with the polish chamber orchestra “Wratislava” as well as a series of concerts with the Conservatory orchestra of Breslau, Poland as part of the 2007 annual EuroSilesia Festival. Born in Leipzig, Germany, Ken Masur began his comprehensive musical training at age 6 with the piano and at age 9 as boy-soprano in the legendary Gewandhaus Children’s Choir. As an undergraduate at Columbia University, Masur studied orchestration with French composer Tristan Murail, composition with Joseph Dubiel and conducting with Jeffrey Milarsky. He served as Principal Trumpet of the National Youth Guild Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and of the Columbia University Orchestra. Masur also participated in masterclasses with conductors Helmut Rilling (Stuttgart) Zdenek Macal (New Jersey Philharmonic), George Manahan (New York City Opera) at the Manhattan School of Music, and Kurt Masur in Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra’s first two international conducting masterclasses in 2001-2003. Since obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in music from Columbia in 2002, Masur has been studying voice with bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff at the Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ in Berlin, Germany. The release of Masur’s 2005 CD-recording (Querstand) in his role as Don Alfonso in Mozart’s „Cosi fan Tutte“ resulted in Klassik Magazine praising him for his „lyric, very smooth and natural interpretation.“ His recital at the 2005 Mendelssohn Festival in Germany prompted critics to write “how seldom one hears…such a warm and lyric Baritone voice as with Ken Masur.”[LVZ] Masur has given Lieder recitals in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Berlin, Detmold and at the Festival Les Muséiques Basel. He has been featured both as conductor and singer on broadcasts for such stations as WKCR New York as part of its annual Bach Fest, RTHK Hong Kong and is regularly featured on Radio France.
