Charles Hazlewood is an award-winning conductor and musical revolutionary; he is a speaker, and Artistic Director of Paraorchestra.

He has conducted some of the greatest classical repertoire with some of the best orchestras in the world and is a significant presence on British television and radio.

He is the founder of the world’s first Paraorchestra and his critically-acclaimed music theatre shows tour the world; his innovations have created new audiences for orchestral music and even reset what our concept of an ‘orchestra’ is.  Hazlewood is a visionary with a mission to bring the ever modern joy of orchestral music to the 21st century audience and in doing so, to change lives and communities for the better.

Charles Hazlewood won first prize in the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition during his early twenties, and has since conducted many of the world's greatest orchestras (including The Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, The Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Danish Radio Symphony). He has played Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms, and multiple festivals throughout the world, collaborating with artists as diverse as Nigel Kennedy, Professor Green and Wyclef Jean. Charles has conducted over 200 world premieres and won the Berlin Film Festival 'Golden Bear' for Best Film with his South African township opera company's U Carmen e-Khayelitsha.

Under his leadership Paraorchestra became the world's first large-scale integrated ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians who made their debut at the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics and were the first ever orchestral headliner at Glastonbury Festival. Charles has authored, presented and conducted the music in multiple films for BBC TV (on Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, amongst others, as well as The Beatles, and Badly Drawn Boy, and Minimalism); he has won three Sony Awards for his shows on BBC Radio 2, created the score for the South African Mysteries (West End and worldwide) and Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs), and a new opera The Tin Drum (both Kneehigh) and has three TED talks to his name.

Source: Charles Hazlewood's Official Website

Born in Hong Kong in 1979 and classically trained as a composer, Fung Lam has enjoyed a multifaceted career as a composer, an artist and an artistic planner.

His music has been performed at the BBC Proms, and in some of the most prestigious venues in the world, such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Konzerthaus Berlin, Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall and South Bank Centre in London. He holds the distinction of being the first Hong Kong composer to be commissioned by the BBC. His prolific output includes over ten orchestral works, including three commissions for the BBC and two commissions for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil). The world première of his Endless Forms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms in 2012 received critical acclaims. An excerpt from Evening Standard's review reads, “... Lam, working with a carefully constructed minimum of material, shapes his musical world with dreamy individuality.” Fung Lam served as HK Phil’s Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Composer-in-Residence in 2013-14. Quintessence, written to celebrate the orchestra’s 40th anniversary, has been performed, under Jaap van Zweden, in Hong Kong and on tours in 12 major cities in Europe (2015), China (2016) and Asia/Australia (2017). Other interpreters of his music have included the BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, China National Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Besides concert music, his output also includes music for dance and theatre and interdisciplinary works.

Recent major productions include Dance of Strings (2019) for the Hong Kong Dance Company, Yet Another Dream (2021), his portrait concert in collaboration with visual communicator anothermountainman, Nocturnes (2022), a music and film collaboration with photographer/director Wing Shya, Hyperreality (2023), an installation- concert co-created with media artist Keith Lam and premiered at the Hong Kong Arts Festival and reCONNECT 2024: NEW CANVAS (2023-24), an immersive multi-media performance in collaboration also with Keith Lam. In recent years, he has also been creating soundscape compositions, multi-media installations, as well as visual artworks. These include Round (2016-24), which has been exhibited in different countries including the Hong Kong House at Echigo-Tsumari Art Field 2023 in Japan, Literary Walk (2020), a collaboration with designer Kay Chan at The Mills, Before a Passage (2021), a collaboratively-created interdisciplinary experiential installation at the North Point (East) Pier, Dreamscape Music Chair and Dreamscape Music Space (2021), soundscape installations exhibited at the Central Pier 9 and Form Society respectively, an interactive soundscape for Toolbox Percussion’s Double Listen exhibition at ArtisTree (2023), as well as his screenprinted artwork Scintillating Hearts (2022) which has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London, UK. In March to August 2024, he was featured at the “encounters: oi! oi! oi!” exhibition, curated by Toolbox Percussion, at the Oil Street Art Space as the lead artist, showcasing three installation works Four Symbols (2024), Round (2016-24) and Listening Room (2024). Most recently, his multi-media installation Nightscape (2024) was exhibited at the Through the Lens of ... exhibition at the Chengdu Art Museum in China.

Fung Lam holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Sussex in UK, and was awarded the Young Artist Award 2011 from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. He served as Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s Director of Artistic Planning in 2017-19.

Source: Lam Fung's Official Website