Fresh from a phenomenal summer as resident conductor of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, Meridian Symphony Orchestra returning guest conductor, Maestro Ken Lam, will lead the MSO in a powerhouse season opener featuring the extraordinary pianist, Sandra Shen on Saturday, Sept. 22.

    The performance at the MSU Riley Center, 2200 Fifth St., begins at 7 p.m. Pre-concert gatherings begin at 6 p.m.

    Tickets are $25-$35. Tickets for students and military personnel are $10.

    Shen, who also performed at Brevard this past summer, is the first prize winner of the International Piano Competition in France.

    She will be performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the MSO.  In addition to her touring schedule, she finds time to perform her church recital “Inspiration From Above.”

    Lam also is the winner of the 2011 Memphis International Conducting Competition, artistic director of the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestra and associate professor and director of orchestra at Montclair State University in New Jersey, having recently concluded his position as assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

    He was a featured conductor in the League of American Orchestra’s 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview with the Nashville Symphony and made his U.S. professional debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in June 2008 as one of four conductors selected by Leonard Slatkin. In recent seasons he worked with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Memphis, Illinois, Meridian, St. Louis and Baltimore, as well as the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra.

    In opera, he directs productions of the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard each summer and was assistant conductor at Cincinnati Opera, Baltimore Lyric Opera and at the Castleton Festival (under Lorin Maazel). His recent production of Massenet’s Manon at Peabody Conservatory was hailed by the Baltimore Sun as a top 10 classical event in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area in 2010. He will make opera debuts at the Spoleto Festival USA and at the Lincoln Center in New York later this season.

    In Hong Kong, Lam has been artistic director of Hong Kong Voices since 2000 and was principal conductor of the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra until 2007.