bio
Dr. Angel Lam is a GRAMMY-nominated composer who uses the beauty of sounds, songs, instrumentation, and written language to express detailed emotions and her passion for life. She tells intimate stories about life and death, growing up, inspirations and relationships. Her compositions are praised as “Timeless” (by Carnegie Hall), “Precious, soaring lyrical lines” (Metropolitan Opera, Opera News), and “both poignant and important.” (Yo-Yo Ma)
She has a background in both classical and folk music, learning zheng and qin (ancient Chinese zithers) as a child. Her work combines evocative songs, deeply felt, hidden memories, an exploration of human experiences, and her immersed sensitivity to spirituality.
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She is one of America’s foremost female composers selected by the League of American Orchestras and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. In the 2024-2026 season, she will write three new works to be performed by nine professional North American orchestras. Most recently, she is also the recipient of Opera America’s Discovery Grant Award to develop her new musical-opera.
Previously she was honored to receive three New York Carnegie Hall commissions before the age of 29, including a cello concerto dedicated to Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Spano. She also wrote a piece for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble’s worldwide tour, performing at prestigious venues like Lucerne Festival in Switzerland and the Royal Albert Hall in London. Recently she is a composer-in-residence at Yale University Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she is commissioned to write a new work for superstar pipa virtuoso Wu Man and artistic director Melvin Chen at their festival opening concert. Most recently, she produced, curated and composed a concert program at Merkin Hall in New York City titled “Hong Kong Journeys”, co-presented by the 25th Anniversary of the city of Hong Kong SAR and Hong Kong Economics and Trade Office of New York. Recent and upcoming, her music is released on Naxos Records, Albany Records and In a Circle Records, performed by the first prize winner of the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artists Competition and Grammy-nominated Hub New Music Ensemble.
Her works have been performed and recorded in 70 different cities worldwide by multiple touring ensembles, including Music at Copland House Ensemble (U.S. tour), Guitar Foundation of America (worldwide recordings and performances), Hub New Music Ensemble (U.S. tour and recording), Asia-America New Music Institute (Japan and Thailand tour), the Silk Road Ensemble (worldwide tour), Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival at the Konzertsaal des Rathauses, Bavaria, Germany, New Music for Strings Iceland Festival, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Radio Television Hong Kong (film recording), Music at Mānoa at Mae Zenke Orvis Auditorium, Hawaii, Little Universe Theatre in Shandong, China, and Hong Kong West Kowloon Cultural District Mixtape Volume 2 album recording.
The Guitar Foundation of America recently commissioned her to write the solo guitar work, “Little snow.” It was published in GFA’s Spotlight Series Volume I. It was premiered by GFA international mentee Jitsupa Petchmark in Thailand and selected as an official repertoire piece for the Semifinals round of the prestigious International Concert Artists Competition. The competition took place in Brussels, Belgium, and Los Angeles. The first prize winner, Bokyung Byun, recorded “Little snow” with Naxos Records, the album was released in summer 2022. The piece has also been performed by star guitarist Marko Topchii.
She was voted “Artist of the Month” by Musical America, “Yalie of the Week” by Yale University Yale Alumni Magazine, and a featured artist on Best Buy Inc.'s "Creative Minds" with the Minnesota Orchestra performing her orchestral work “In Search of Seasons,” conducted by Osmo Vanska.
She was commissioned by Carnegie Hall's festival “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices” and another Carnegie Hall commission was released by Sony/BMG on Silk Road Ensemble’s CD “New Impossibilities” as an exclusive bonus and recorded again as one of four featured composers on the GRAMMY® -nominated album “Off the Map,” in the Classical Crossover Album category.
As composer, librettist, and artistic director, she premiered her full-length musical “June Lovers,” commissioned by the International Hong Kong Arts Festival on their 40th-anniversary celebration. She is honored to receive the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Literary Award to develop and publish her literary works. Her previous works have been read in public readings and are in development with New York Off-Broadway theater Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, The Playwrights Group, and Chelsea Repertory Theatre. She received six semi-staged performances at Theatre Row in Manhattan, and her theatre works were also performed at Museum of Chinese American (MOCA) New York, Here Arts Centre, The Tank, The China Institute of New York, National Sawdust Theater in Brooklyn, and Flushing Town Hall in Queens. She was the composer for the Off-Broadway production of “A Dream of Red Pavilions,” which received 40 performances at Theatre Row in New York. Her theatre and writing mentors include Martha Clarke, playwrights Jeremy Karekan (Broadway “Lifespan of a Fact”), Arlene Hutton (Barrow Group), Richard Caliban (Gotham Writers), and director/actor Ernest Abuba (Obie Award winner.)
She has written for both film and dance. She was commissioned to write an album of music for the London/UK film, media and music licensing company Audio Network, the album has been licensed worldwide. She co-created a short film of her own original story and music, “Color of the Mind,” with award-winning director Mida Chu (Interlochen alumni) and performed/ commissioned by the Interlochen Center for the Arts Symphonic Band. It was an official selection at the Monarch International Film Festival. For dance she wrote a piece for the centennial celebration of the Peabody Dance Institute and another for the 30th-anniversary of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in collaboration with the School of Contemporary Dance and Chinese Dance.
More performance groups
Her music had been performed by the Colorado Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, New York Greenwich Village Orchestra, New York University Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Northwest Symphony, Oak Park and River Forest Symphony, University of California Irvine Symphony, Yale Cellos under the direction of Aldo Parisot, Aspen Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival, Yale Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kings Harmonica Quintet, Orange County Women's Chorus, Los Angeles Loyola High Men's Chorus, among others. Her awards include five ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, Macdowell Colony Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow Award, two NACUSA Young Composer Awards, and Audience Prize at the Seoul International Competition for Composers.
Living in New York
She is honored to be a member of the Distinguished Artist Council of the Johns Hopkins University and was a composer-in-residence, now board member of St. John’s Episcopal Church’s Concerts on the Slope chamber music series.
She is a partnering teaching artist of Steinway and Sons in New York, where she has a studio of music composition, theory, and piano performance students. She presents an annual concert at Steinway Hall sponsored by Steinway and Sons of New York. When not doing creative work, she is a staff critic at Theasy.com writing critical reviews for theaters.
Education
Lam received her doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, the Henry and Lucy Moses full scholarship Artist diploma from Yale University, a Bachelor’s degree from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and is the recipient of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund Overseas Full Scholarship and CASH Overseas Full Scholarship. As a child, she attended Hong Kong Pui Ching Primary School 香港培正學校.