Jan Latham-Koenig was born in England in 1953 of French, Danish and Polish descent and studied at the Royal College of Music. After winning all the major conducting and piano prizes and a Gulbenkian Fellowship, he first made his mark as a concert pianist, but in 1982 decided to concentrate exclusively on conducting. He has conducted most of the major orchestras in Britain including the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Hallé and all the BBC orchestras. He also founded his own group, the Koenig Ensemble, in 1976. From 1989 to 1992 he was Music Director of the Orquestra do Porto, which he formed at the request of the Portuguese government.
Jan Latham-Koenig has conducted several orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, Radio France Philharmonic, Bordeaux-Aquitaine National Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Danish and Swedish radio orchestras, Stockholm Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the orchestras of Westdeutscher Rundffunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and Südwestfunk in Germany and the orchestras of the Teatro Comunale in Florence and RAI Turin.
He is particularly interested in opera and his many performances have taken him to the Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, La Fenice (Venice), Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, Canadian Opera, Verona Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Royal Swedish Opera and opera houses in Genoa, Lisbon, Toulouse, Monte-Carlo, Bonn, Stuttgart, Bilbao, Santiago (Chile) and Rome, where from 1988 to 1990, he held the position of Principal Guest Conductor. Opera festivals include Bregenz, Caracalla (Rome), Wexford, Macerata, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Torre del Lago, Vincenza, Bergamo, Lucca, Montepulciano and Montpellier. Opera broadcasts on radio include Puccini's Edgar and Zzymanowski's King Roger for Danish Radio; a cycle of Kurt Weill operas and, in February 1999, Dialogues des Carmélites, broadcast simultaneously by France Musique (radio) and Arte (Franco-German television channel). In June 99, this production was awarded the Claude-Rostand prize (for the best lyrical production in the provinces).
In 1988, Jan Latham-Koenig made an impressive debut at the Vienna State Opera with Macbeth and was immediately invited back for rehearsals of Aida in May 1989. As Permanent Guest Conductor he has now conducted over 100 performances there including Maria Stuarda, Macbeth, Un Ballo in maschera and La Traviata. Over the past few seasons, he has extended his activities as guest conductor, making his debut at the Opéra Bastille in Tosca and conducting with the Radio France Philharmonic.

Jan Latham-Koenig was appointed Music Director of both the Opéra National du Rhin and Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra in September 1997. From his very first season here, his concerts and productions at the Opera were very highly acclaimed. Macbeth and La Bohème were tremendous successes. His production of Dialogues des Carmélites at the Royal Danish Opera (November/December 1997) and a revival of Tosca at the Opéra Bastille (January/February 1998) were both highly acclaimed. In late March 1998, he conducted a Netherlands Radio concert at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw with La Bohème (Act I of Puccini's opera and Acts III and IV of Leoncavallo's).

Since then, he has conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Radio France Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Barcelona, the Regional Orchestra of Tuscany, Orquestra Cuidad in Granada, Norma in Santiago (Chile) and Tosca at Covent Garden with the Royal Opera. During 2001, he conducted in China and Japan.

Through his work in Strasbourg, both with the Orchestra and the Opera, he has conducted the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris, Germany, the United Kingdom and Asia. In 1999, he conducted several performances of the Dialogues de Carmélites at the Proms in London and the Savonlinna Festival. In 2001, he conducted the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Théâtre du Châtelet in a production of Die Tote Stadt (Korngold) and for a concert of symphony music. In the same year, he also took part in the contemporary music festival Gulbenkian with soloists from the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra.

During the 2001/02 season he conducted Elektra at the Opéra National du Rhin and Gustav Mahler's 8th symphony in front of an audience of 6,000 people in Strasbourg.