Profile: Ken Selden

Ken Selden, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Music
Director of Orchestral Studies

Office: XSB 243
Phone: 503.725.8112
Fax: 503.725.8215
E-mail: kselden@pdx.edu

In the fall of 2006, KEN SELDEN was appointed Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra and New Music Ensemble at Portland State University. His inaugural season with the PSU Symphony was awarded First Prize in Adventurous Programming from ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

During the previous five years, Ken Selden led a series of highly acclaimed performances as Assistant Conductor of two innovative ensembles - the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Eos Orchestra. He also worked extensively with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestras and the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and was Music Director of orchestras at Brooklyn College and ColumbiaUniversity.

A strong advocate for new music, Ken Selden has worked closely with composers Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Tan Dun, and has conducted recent world premieres of music by Peter Lieberson, Michael Nyman and Stephen Paulus.

A graduate of New England Conservatory, Indiana University and Peabody Conservatory, Ken Selden studied violin with James Buswell and Yuval Yaron, and conducting with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar. He attended the National Conducting Institute at Kennedy Center, where he worked with Leonard Slatkin and conducted the National Symphony. He made his debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra at the invitation of Pinchas Zuckerman, and subsequently appeared with orchestras of Baltimore, Denver, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, and at music festivals in the United States, Israel, Japan, Romania and Switzerland. Most recently, he performed with theMoscow Chamber Orchestra at the David Oistrakh Festival and conducted orchestras in Belgium, Finland and Italy.