An equally accomplished operatic conductor, Mr. Knapp was Associate Conductor of Broomhill Opera in London from 2000 to 2003 and helped create its sister company in South Africa whose innovative productions brought international recognition and led to several worldwide tours. He has conducted a number of operas including The Turn of the Screw, The Rake's Progress, The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, Der Siblersee and Il trittico. As an assistant conductor, he has worked extensively for the Los Angeles Philharmonic assisting Esa-Pekka Salonen among others, at the Kirov Opera under Leonid Korchmar; and for Michael Tilson Thomas with the New World Symphony, the Russian National Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. From 2004 to 2006 Mr. Knapp served as the Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony, leading a number of high-profile concerts in its main series.

A committed proponent of new music, Mr. Knapp has led such groups as the Perspectives New Music Ensemble in London, ICE Ensemble, based in Chicago, and the Seattle Chamber Players conducting works by John Adams, Julian Anderson, Kaijo Saariaho, Huang Ruo, Peter Bruun, Pascal Dusapin, Earl Brown, Anders Nilsson and Gerard Grisey, among others. In 2005, Knapp conducted the world premier of Paul Dresher's opera The Tyrant in collaboration with the Seattle Chamber Players and John Duykers. In the summer of 2006, Mr. Knapp conducted the U.S. premiere of Zona by Magnus Lindberg as part of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival.

Born in the United States, Mr. Knapp received a bachelor's degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Tufts University. He studied conducting at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena under Yuri Temirkanov and Myung-Whun Chung; he then earned a post-graduate diploma in conducting from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia, where he studied with the renowned pedagogue Ilya Musin.

The recipient of many honors for his artistic achievements, Mr. Knapp was a prize-winner in the Third International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in 1999. That same year he was also awarded the prestigious Woodhouse Junior Fellowship in Conducting from the Royal College of Music in London and subsequently spent the year in residency studying with John Carewe while working with the Royal College's orchestras, new music ensembles and opera theater. In 2003 he was selected to participate in the National Conducting Institute at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a project of the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin in collaboration with the American Symphony Orchestra League. In 2005 Mr. Knapp and the Seattle Symphony were awarded a grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation.