Currently serving as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Macao Orchestra; Resident Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra; and Programme Director of the Macao International Music Festival, Lio Kuokman is praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a startling conducting talent.” He was the second prize winner of the third Svetlanov International Conducting Competition in Paris with audience prize and orchestra prize and has served as the first Chinese Assistant Conductor with the Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Lio Kuokman has successfully collaborated with many leading orchestras across the globe. In 2021, he conducted a subscription concert at Vienna’s Konzerthaus with the Vienna Symphony and subsequently toured in China with them in June 2023. A frequent collaborator of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse most recently Lio conducted its 22/23 season opening concert. Having returned to Toulouse for the New Year Concert, he also led the first tour in Saudi Arabia. In 22/23 season Lio made debuts with Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, Radio & Television Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra and RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid which all led to immediate re-invitations. Last season, Lio also returned to the Philadelphia Orchestra for the Lunar New Year Concert.

The current 23/24 season marks Lio’s debut with Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Croatian RTV and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Lio also toured Bangkok and China with the Hong-Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, conducting Rimski-Korsakov Sheherazade, Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream, a popular programme in an open-air symphonic concert Under the Stars and a fundraising concert as a resident guest conductor. Lio collaborates with Hong-Kong Ballet in a production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the production The Last Song choreographed by Hu Song Wei with music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Lio Kuokman is a frequent collaborator with the NTSO in Taiwan, and has previously worked with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Detroit Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, NHK, Hiroshima, Tokyo Metropolitan, Kyoto Symphony, Suzhou Symphony, Kanegawa Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, China National Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic and Latvian National Symphony.

Lio Kuokman recently collaborated with National Taichung Theater on a production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Other opera performances include titles such as La bohème, L’elisir d’amore, Pagliacci, Turandot, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly and Carmen.

Educated at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory, Kuokman is a founding member and President of the Macao Chamber Music Association. For his contributions to the development of arts and culture, Kuokman received a Certificate of Commendation and Medal of Cultural Merit from both governments of Hong Kong and Macao. In 2021 Kuokman was the recipient of the Hong Kong Ten Outstanding Young Persons award.