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. Recently, he also led the first tour of Saudi Arabia with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse with whom he is forging a strong relationship having conducted their 22/23 season opening concert and having returned for the New Year Concert. Among recent and forthcoming highlights are debuts with the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, NSO Dublin, as well as the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid, RTV Slovenia and Gavle Symphony which all led to immediate re-invitations; and a return visit with the Philadelphia Orchestra for the Lunar New Year Concert.

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, 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.