Ken Selden is Director of Orchestral Studies at Portland State University, a position he has held since 2006. Under his direction, the PSU Orchestra has received multiple ASCAP Awards in Adventurous Programming from the League of American Orchestras. In addition to annual ballet and opera productions, the orchestra has hosted guest artists Manuel Barrueco, China Forbes, Jennifer Frautschi, Matt Haimovitz, Anna Polonsky, Awadagin Pratt, and Orli Shaham.

In recent years, Selden has appeared as guest conductor of the Eugene, Newport, Oregon, and Vancouver Symphonies, as well as the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Salem Chamber Orchestra, Third Angle, Fear No Music, and Portland Youth Philharmonic. In addition to two recordings of Mahler and Debussy for MSR Classics, Selden’s new Piazzolla CD, featuring violinist Tomás Cotik and the Martingale Ensemble, has recently been released on the Naxos label.

Prior to his appointment at PSU, Selden led a series of performances as assistant conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Eos Orchestra. While in New York, he also conducted the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestras and the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and served as music director of orchestras at Brooklyn College and Columbia University.

Selden made his professional debut with the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada at the invitation of Pinchas Zuckerman. He subsequently appeared with orchestras of Baltimore, Denver, Minnesota, and North Carolina, and at music festivals in the United States, Romania, and Switzerland. He has also conducted the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at the David Oistrakh Festival in Estonia and orchestras in Belgium, Finland, and Italy.

Selden is a graduate of New England Conservatory, Indiana University, and Peabody Conservatory. His teachers include violinists James Buswell and Yuval Yaron, chamber music coaches Joseph Gingold and Janos Starker, and conductors Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar. He participated in conducting masterclasses with Neeme Jarvi, Jorma Panula, Carl St. Clair, and Yuri Temirkanov, and attended the National Conducting Institute at the Kennedy Center, where he studied with Leonard Slatkin and conducted the National Symphony. Selden has worked with composers Pierre Boulez, John Cage, and Tan Dun, and has conducted world premieres of music by Peter Lieberson, Michael Nyman, and Stephen Paulus.