Samuel Lee

Samuel Lee is the winner of the Malko Competition for Young Conductors 2024. Previously, he was awarded first prize winner of the BMI International Conducting Competition in Bucharest and the International Conducting Competition in Taipei. At the end of the 2024/25 season, he completed his tenure as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony.

Lee’s 2025/26 season includes his conducting debuts with the Iceland Symphony, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bodensee Philharmonic, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova as well as returns to the Cincinnati Symphony and Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, as well as the Korean National Symphony Orchestra, where he leads a tour to Japan’s Tokyo Opera City and NHK Hall in Osaka. He also makes his first appearances with the Orquesta Cuidad de Granada and Arctic Philharmonic as soloist and conductor.

Amongst the orchestras Lee has conducted are Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, Hamburger Camerata at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Leipziger Symphonieorchester at the Gewandhaus, Symphoniker Hamburg, Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt State Orchestra, Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Bucharest Symphony Orchestra, Arad Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra and the SAC Festival Orchestra.

An avid promoter of contemporary music, Lee has conducted premieres by Bryce Dessner, Giuseppe Gallo-Balma and Marc Migó. He was also a conducting fellow with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2021 and 2022.

Lee is an alumnus of Hochschule für Musik‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin, where he studied viola with Tabea Zimmermann and later, orchestral conducting with Christian Ehwald. Lee completed his studies in orchestral conducting at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Ulrich Windfuhr.