Japanese-American conductor, Lance Inouye’s diverse conducting career has led to engagements with Portland Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Sarasota Opera, as well as orchestras across the U.S. and abroad. Inouye recently made his Hawai’i Opera Theatre debut in the fall of 2023 conducting Jack Perla’s An American Dream. Based in Portland, Oregon, Inouye is currently Artistic Director and Conductor of the Willamette Valley Symphony, Artistic Director of The Portland Concert Opera, and Associate Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Activities at Lewis & Clark College.
Active as a guest lecturer and conductor, Inouye has given conducting masterclasses at Mahidol University College of Music in Bangkok, Thailand, and at the Instituto de Formación Integral Coro y Orquesta Urubichá, in Bolivia, where he premiered the music of Chilean composer Freddy Vilches. In the 2020-2021 season, Inouye joined the Portland Opera as coach and conductor on their Journeys to Justice production, conducting Carlos Simon's Night Trip and Damien Geter's The Talk, featuring Resident Artists and the Portland Opera Chorus.
Inouye previously held the position of Conducting Assistant with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and has served as cover conductor for the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra and the Sarasota Orchestra. He has appeared as guest conductor with Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, Walla Walla Symphony, Temple University Opera Theatre (Die Zauberflöte), the Naples Philharmonic, Honolulu Symphony, and in Russia, Inouye he has guest conducted the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra “Klassika,” Karelia Philharmonic, Sochi Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic of which he served as Associate Conductor for three seasons.
Inouye has been a prizewinner at conducting competitions throughout Europe, most notably receiving 2nd prize in the 2019 Makris International Conducting Competition in Belgrade, Serbia. Inouye studied under David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival in the prestigious American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and completed his post-graduate studies in Russia at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory “Rimsky-Korsakov.”
Lance Inouye, conductor