Samuel Tak-Ho Tam is a Toronto-based conductor, organist, and educator.

 

This coming season, he appears as a guest conductor with the Brantford Symphony Orchestra and continues his work with Counterpoint Community Orchestra in downtown Toronto. He has worked with a wide range of ensembles across the Greater Toronto Area, including the Rose Orchestra, Rosebuds Youth Orchestra, Brampton Children’s Chorus, St. Roch Chorale, the Taylor Academy Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

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Earlier in his career, Tam joined the Canadian Opera Company as Apprentice Conductor, assisting on numerous main-stage productions including Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Tosca, Eugene Onegin, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Pelléas et Mélisande, Don Giovanni, Simon Boccanegra, La Bohème, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Così fan tutte, Rusalka, Idomeneo, Aida, Death in Venice, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

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At the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School, he has served as Assistant Conductor and répétiteur for Koerner Hall opera productions including Die Fledermaus, La Cecchina, La Belle Hélène, The Cunning Little Vixen, Le Docteur Miracle, and L’Heure Espagnole, working closely with singers and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with the Taylor Academy Chamber Orchestra and served as instructor for the Academy’s conducting course.

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Tam received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Toronto in 2022, where he worked extensively with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducting repertoire by Haydn, Mozart, Dvořák, Gershwin, and Jennifer Higdon. In 2017, he conducted a performance of Don Giovanni with the University of Toronto Opera Division. Throughout his studies at both the Royal Conservatory and the University of Toronto, he worked closely with renowned Canadian conductor and pedagogue Uri Mayer. His doctoral dissertation, The Orchestral Symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor: Context, Form and Performances, is available through ProQuest and TSpace.

 

Tam is a graduate of McGill University, where he studied organ performance with John Grew and conducting with Alexis Hauser. He was recently invited by international Wagnerian soprano Jane Eaglen to participate in the American Wagner Festival.