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Angel Lam is a young artist who uses the beauty of soundscape and instrumentation to express detailed and refined emotions in her music. Through musical poetry she conveys the memories and imageries that inspired her works. Her music is praised as "beautiful, even ravishing at moments", as well as "[a] kaleidoscopic outpouring". She blends the subtle and evocative expressiveness of an ancient form of East Asian aesthetic, to the power and perpetual energy coming from her western musical training. Her music ranges from the delicate depiction of a drop of water for an unconventional instrumentation--guitar, harp, vibraphone, crotales and double bass, to the telling of a forgotten hero from ancient China written for large orchestra and narration. She writes her own short stories that are an important part of her music. In her works, she continually seeks to retell the beauty she finds in everyday life.

Miss Lam grew up in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Her compositions have been performed throughout the United States and in many major cities around the world. She is a two-time winner of the Carnegie Hall emerging composer commission. She first received the award in 2005-06, where she worked with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project, and then again in 2006-07, where she worked with Grammy Award winning composer Osvaldo Golijov and prolific vocalist Dawn Upshaw. These two collaborations, together with the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, culminated in two Carnegie Hall premieres of her work in September 2006 and April 2007. Most recently, her composition Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain was selected to be on the touring repertoire of Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, who toured with her piece in the United States, Canada, China, Japan and Switzerland's Lucerne Festival in 2007-2009. This work was released by Sony/BMG on Silk Road Ensemble's CD "New Impossibilities"*.

Her recent and upcoming collaborations include commissions from Yale Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Carnegie Hall in a work written for Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to premiere in Atlanta Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium in fall 2009, Yale Cellos, Hong Kong Arts Festival 2010, Greenwich Village Orchestra (New York), Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Grainger Quartet (Australia), Orange County Women's Chorus, Loyola High Men's Chorus and Orchestra (Los Angeles), Houston Chamber Choir, Peabody Dance in a theater composition created under the guidance of renowned theater artist Martha Clarke, and performances by Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, New York University Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia and Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest (Chicago).

She is currently a doctoral candidate at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory and an artist diploma candidate at Yale University under the Henry and Lucy Moses Full Scholarship. Her mentors are Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman and Christopher Theofanidis.

She received two Master degrees, in composition and music theory at the Peabody Conservatory, where she taught music theory to the Peabody undergraduates and designed three courses: "Classical Music Today: An analysis and Appreciation of Contemporary Classical Music", "The Romantic Composer" and "World Music, World Culture" for the Johns Hopkins University undergraduates during the 2005-2009 Intersession terms. Miss Lam began studying composition in high school at the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, and later entered the Academy to begin her undergraduate studies in composition studying with Law Wing Fai, Clarence Mak (electronic music) and Lo Hau-Man. At the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, she researched in ancient Chinese aesthetics and Asian aesthetics in contemporary Western music. She received numerous awards and scholarships during her undergraduate studies to attend music festivals internationally, and a scholarship from the Liberal Arts Department lead by Prof. Betty Wei where she toured Europe studying the fine arts and architectures of European cities. To pursue her graduate studies, she received the honored Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund Scholarship, Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong Composition Scholarship for Overseas Studies, and Peabody Conservatory's Graduate Assistantship Full Tuition Award.

*exclusively sold at Barnes and Nobles
Honors and Awards: (show) (hide)
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Attended Masterclasses and Lesson with:
George Crumb, Poul Ruders, Christopher Rouse, George Tsontakis, Detlev Glanert, Ingram Marshall, James Primosch, Joel Hoffman, John Harbison, Brian Ferneyhough, Marc-Dalbavie
Scholarships and Grants: (show) (hide)
Higher resolution headshots:    Photo 1    Photo 2   (right click to download)

Contact the composer: composer (at) angellam.com