Ken Selden is conductor and music director of the Portland State University Orchestra, a position he has held since 2006. Under his direction, the PSU Orchestra has received three awards in Adventurous Programming from ASCAP and the League of American Orchestras. In addition to annual ballet and opera productions, the orchestra has hosted guest artists Manuel Barrueco, China Forbes, Matt Haimovitz, Anna Polonsky, Awadagin Pratt, and Orli Shaham.
Since arriving in Portland, Selden has appeared as guest conductor of the Oregon, Vancouver, Newport, and Eugene Symphonies, as well as the Salem Chamber Orchestra, Third Angle, Fear No Music, and Portland Youth Philharmonic. His two recordings of Mahler and Debussy arrangements with the Martingale Ensemble have been released on MSR Classics.
Selden made his professional debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada at the invitation of Pinchas Zuckerman, and subsequently appeared with orchestras of Denver, Baltimore, Minnesota, and North Carolina, and at music festivals in the United States, Romania, and Switzerland. He has also conducted the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at the David Oistrakh Festival in Estonia and orchestras in Finland, Italy, and Belgium.
Prior to his appointment at PSU, Selden led a series of performances as assistant conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Eos Orchestra. While in New York, he also conducted the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestras and the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and served as music director of orchestras at Brooklyn College and Columbia University.
Selden is a graduate of New England Conservatory, Indiana University and Peabody Conservatory. His teachers include violinists James Buswell and Yuval Yaron, and conductors Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar. He participated in conducting masterclasses with Neeme Jarvi, Jorma Panula, and Yuri Temirkanov, and attended the National Conducting Institute at the Kennedy Center, where he studied with Leonard Slatkin and conducted the National Symphony. Selden has worked with composers Pierre Boulez, John Cage, and Tan Dun, and has conducted world premieres of music by Peter Lieberson, Michael Nyman, and Stephen Paulus.