About

Hong Kong-born composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam (b. 1981) grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts, and studied music composition at Boston University, the Peabody Conservatory, and Duke University, where he received a PhD in music. George is interested in projects that intersect music, theater, and the documentary, and is currently at work on a new documentary trio for New Morse Code (New Haven, CT). George’s recent one-act opera The Persistence of Smoke (2011), with a libretto by North Carolina playwright John Justice, focused on the once-thriving cigarette industry in Durham (NC), inspired by collected interviews, oral histories and archival materials. The opera was staged in April 2011 at Golden Belt, the site of a former cotton mill that manufactured bags for Bull Durham tobacco.

George Lam’s music has been performed by Gotham Chamber Opera (New York, NY), Christ Church United Methodist (New York, NY), Emerging Voices Project (New York, NY), Contemporary Musiking (Hong Kong), Volti (San Francisco, CA), American Opera Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Red Clay Saxophone Quartet (Greensboro, NC), AM/PM Saxophone Quartet, Boston University Concert Band, Charles River Wind Ensemble (Boston, MA), Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Hong Kong Voices. From 2009 to 2012, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and conductor Yip Wing-sie commissioned three orchestral works, which were all premiered by the orchestra.

George was the recipient of an American Music Center grant for his orchestral work The Queen’s Gramophone (2009), as well as the Evan V. Frankel Fellowship in Humanities at Duke University. Recent fellowships and residencies include the Aspen Music Festival Schumann Fellowship, the Dartington International Summer School Angus Allnatt Foundation Fellowship, American Opera Projects’ “Composers & The Voice” workshop series, the Virginia Arts Festival John Duffy Composers Institute, and the Volti Choral Arts Laboratory commissioning and residency program. In 2011, George served as the Composer-In-Residence at the inaugural Gesher Music Festival of Emerging Artists in St Louis, MO.

George Lam lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is Producing Associate for both Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group. Along with composer Ruby Fulton, George is a founding company member and co-director of Rhymes With Opera.

To contact George, simply send an e-mail to georgelam@gmail.com

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“Representing the newest end of the spectrum was Lam’s Words Become Unlatched … seems intended to recall the chatterings of a conflicted brain. And while Rogers’ texts proved aptly incomprehensible, Lam’s cut-crystal score rang with clarity.”

- Georgia Rowe, San Francisco Classical Voice

“Intermission allowed the set crew to get ready for — and the audience to switch gears to experience — The Persistence of Smoke … Aside from a very well-crafted score and exceptionally written text, the venue was ideal and the visual aspects of the opera were well done … There was so much depth to the show! I think this is an opera with staying-power.”

- Karen Moorman, North Carolina Classical Voice