Dr David Kram AM, Artistic Director of the German-Australian Opera Grant and Senior Fellow, the University of Melbourne, is a distinguished conductor, artistic director, academic, composer and pianist in Australia, Europe and Asia.

2020 Dr Kram was honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for “significant service to the performing arts, to opera and chamber choirs, and to education”.

Dr Kram has a wide spectrum of disciplines:

• Conductor in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Australia and Asia, including Kapellmeister, Stadtheater Basel (5 years), Erster Kapellmeister, Nationaltheater Mannheim (2 years), Resident Conductor, The Australian Opera (8 years) and Music Director, State Opera of South Australia (3 years).
• Experience of board protocols, budgeting and marketing: founder of More Than Opera, a small not-for-profit arts company, leading it for eighteen years.
• Music research in Europe and the USA, earning him a PhD from Monash University, Melbourne.
• Tertiary education: Head of Opera Department at the Victorian College of the Arts; now Senior Fellow, Melbourne University.
• Continuing to be in demand as a pianist. In 2020 he launched Youtube channel Kram’sNotes to make backing tracks for singers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
• He is a represented composer with the Australian Music Centre and has conducted many new works.

2016-19 he conducted his own work in Melbourne, France, Mauritius and Singapore, recorded a CD of Australian orchestral music with Prague Radio Symphony, conducted Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer at the Sydney Opera House and the world premiere of her cantata Eumeralla.

Highlights of 2019 included conductor, State Music Camp Youth Orchestra (Melbourne), Freddie Hill’s new opera The Water Babies (Sydney) and world premiere, Alon Trigger’s Kristallnacht Cantata (Melbourne).

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