Dr David Kram is an opera and concert conductor, university lecturer, arts manager and pianist/coach with forty-eight years international experience. Dr Kram gained a PhD in musicology from Monash University; he is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures (www.rsa.org.uk), an Associate of the Royal College of Music (London) and a member of Melbourne Rotary. Dr Kram is a founder director of More Than Opera Ltd (www.morethanopera.com) which develops artists and engages with the community to make more types of opera more meaningful to more types of people. He is also Musical Director of the New-York based International Opera Productions, making regular visits to conduct the Prague Radio Orchestra.
Dr Kram was appointed Head of Opera in 1996 by the Victorian College of the Arts. His current duties include conducting the VCA Symphony Orchestra, postgraduate supervision, chamber music coordination and teaching conducting, aural studies, orchestration and French, German and Italian at undergraduate level.
After making his conducting Debut in Italy (Spoleto Festival) in 1969, Dr Kram held positions at the opera houses of Geneva (repetiteur/conductor), Basel (Conductor), Mannheim (First Conductor), The Australian Opera Sydney (Resident Conductor) and State Opera of South Australia Adelaide (Music Director). He has guest conducted prominent orchestras in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Mexico and the Czech Republic and in every capital city in Australia and has worked with leading musicians including Richard Bonynge and Sherill Milnes.
Dr Kram has had a number of compositions performed publicly, including two one-act operas, a song cycle and a concert overture. He arranged and orchestrated a three-act American opera which has been recorded in Bulgaria (www.theincaschosenbride.org)
Dr Kram has lectured or conducted at the conservatoriums or universities of Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, Queensland and Adelaide, Hong Kong and Gothenburg and also in the USA. He has been Musical Director of the Ost-West Internationales Jugendorchester in Germany and the Castlemaine Festival Youth Orchestra in Victoria and continues to mentor and develop emerging talent through his involvement with University life and his directorship of More Than Opera, which has achieved pioneering status with its community outreach activity and the internationally-focussed German-Australian Opera Grant (www.mto-gaog.com).
Dr Kram lives in Malmsbury, Central Victoria, with his wife Belinda (a director, choreographer, teacher and creative therapist) and his two young sons Joel and Hugo. He has two grown-up children by a former marriage. Both live in Sydney: one is a child psychologist and the other a professional violinist.