Angel Lam

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Press and Reviews:

"Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain", written by Angel lam, features the marimba and the haunting sounds of the shakuhachi. A lovely, soulful piece, the composition is rooted in her reflections on the death of her grandmother when she was five. The music captures and conveys the essence of expectation; it is both poignant and important.

- Yo-Yo Ma, on her Carnegie Hall debut composition, Silk Road Project Newsletter Winter 2007

Like Golijov, she combines modern instrumental timbres with world music elements to produce a heady brew. Wielding the brush of a master tonal painter, the composer delineates a childhood vision of the day of her grandmother's death in her native Hong Kong. The alto flute sings a plaintive song in deep, vibrato laden tones. A big melodic thread that could have been written by Dvorak emerges in the cello while the violin line abounds in minimalist figurations a la Steve Reich. The bass acts as a neo-Baroque continuo...

- Sun-Sentinel, Florida (Empty Mountian, Spirit Rain)

If this piece is typical of her other material, it instantly establishes her as a first-rate composer, blending the windswept, pastoral beauty of traditional Chinese classical music with western tonalities. Beginning abruptly with a few bursts from special guest Kojiro Umezaki's shakuhachi (an oversize Japanese wood flute), it rose to an ethereal, atmospheric yet rhythmically difficult altitude and pretty much stayed there for the duration, aside from a couple of breaks with light percussion. That the afternoon's final piece, Richard Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, would be anticlimactic speaks volumes about what preceded it.

- Lucid Culture, (NY premiere of Her Thousand Year Dance)

The moody, spare-textured "Sun, Moon, and Star" by Angel Lam, a Hong Kong-born composer, was about her childhood friendships and was well suited to the clear, expressive voices of Chanel Wood and Yulia van Doren.

- New York Times

Her cohesive, yet kaleidoscopic, outpouring reaches heights far above mere tone-painting, and is even more impressive, coming from the aural inventivness of a composer-in-training at Peabody Conservatory of Music. Ms. Lam's musical recounting of a battle during the Han dynasty (202 BCE)...began with a dramatic narration in a newscast tone. We were introduced to an eyewitness, "traveling through time at 900 times greater than normal energy," expressed in a swirling clarinet cadenza. Brass swells, horn calls, and trombone sforzandi rose to a frenzy at the height of the battle. Ms. Lam exhibited considerable facility at dipping into the tonal palette of the western orchestra, while skillfully weaving in elements of an ancient Chinese battle song.

- Wednesday Journal, Oak Park, IL (Symphonic Journal: Ambush from Ten Directions), May 2005

...stunning duets between aching strings and the breathy shudders of the traditional Japanese shakuhachi flute...

- San Francisco Classical Voice, March 2007

In this slow, evocative piece, shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki coaxes sounds that are alternately breathy, then raucous, then deliciously sweet from his vertical flute.

- Seen and Heard International, March 2007

Lam's expressive Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain is a heartfelt depiction of sorrow...the delicacy and the cumulative effect of this profound writing were well realized by flutist Ebonee Thomas who performed the tricky shakuhachi bamboo flute part on her modern alto flute.

- Miami Herald, August 2007

Quite frankly, this judge found her music to be beautiful, even ravishing at moments, and is quite sure she will develop into a unique voice of new music. Ms. Lam has a real sense of how to begin her music and to let it grow and develop in wonderful fashion... She has an evident and exquisite sense of instrumentation.

- Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Grant Competition 2004-05, adjudicator's comments

Lam is a talented composer who recreated drama in her music.

- Press release comments from Maestra Yip-Wing Sie, South China Morning Post (Symphonic Journal: Ambush from Ten Directions) Feb 2005

Describes the mood of the battle using dissonant atonal music
which gives it highly dramatic overtones!

- hkentertainment [entertainment magazine] (Symphonic Journal: Ambush from Ten Directions), March 2005

Highly refreshing work...
One can directly feel the existence of clean air.
(translated by Pacific Music Festival)

- Hokkaido Shimbun [Hokkaido News], Japan (Red Peony Sky in Mid-June), July 2005

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Featured reviews and articles: South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach Post Johns Hopkins Magazine Peabody Magazine
Organizations: American Music Center National Association of Composers USA (NACUSA) The Silk Road Project Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) Hong Kong Composers' Guild Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH) Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund Mu Phi Epsilon	Music Festivals: Aspen Music Festival Pacific Music Festival Music 06 Songfest Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) Universitat Mozarteum Salzburg Sommerakademie
Composers: Samuel Adler Judah Adashi Derek Bermel Chen Yi John Corigliano Michael Hersch Jennifer Higdon Syd Hodkinson Nicholas Maw	Photos by Eric T. Carlson Cover page photos by the composer and other sources: Mahogany door, Yale University Summer ends, morning meditation at Tanglewood, Lenox, MA "Secret garden", SML Yale Kay Nielson's illustration of "Scheherazade" Autumn stroll near home Garden horse carriage, Mackinac Island, MI Japanese garden from Huntington Library, by Andreas Neumann
Meredith Monk Kevin Puts Poul Ruders Robert Sirota Christopher Theofanidis Augusta Read Thomas George Tsontakis	Other Interests: History of Chinese Medicine (Prof. Hanson) Fine Waters Japanese Hot Springs Sapporo Salzburg
Contact: Composer (at) angellam.com Comments about the website: angel (at) angellam.com

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