Instrumental Chamber Music George Lam Instrumental Chamber Music George Lam

The Emigrants (2018)

for cello, percussion, and digital playback

For Cello, Percussion, and Digital Playback
Commissioned by New Morse Code

 
Listen to interview excerpts here
 

Team

Cello, Percussion, and Digital Playback.

Preface

The United States is often called “a nation of immigrants” and rightly so; our history has been defined by people from other places who have risked much to build a new life here. Recent discussion of immigration highlights the experiences of foreign nationals who have decided to stay: how they can stay, if their stay is legal, and what the ramifications of their stay are. Less common, however, is the discussion of immigrants’ departure from the home they left behind; few, in other words, speak of immigrants as emigrants.

The Emigrants is a documentary chamber music work for cello, percussion and digital playback. The project began by collecting oral history interviews with the emigrant musician community of New York City’s borough of Queens, one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the world. The new work includes these individuals’ voices as part of the score itself, combining spoken word with instrumental music. The goal is to create a work that, through a documentary process, invites a dialogue between the audience, the musicians (both live and recorded), and the stories.

I teach at York College, The City University of New York, where our student body includes emigrants from numerous countries and cultures. I am an emigrant myself, having left Hong Kong and moved to Boston in 1992 when I was 11 years old. As a new student at an American middle school, classical music became a lifeline that bridged the gap between my experiences in Hong Kong and the United states. I started studying the violin in Hong Kong when I was six, and when I started sixth grade upon my arrival in Boston, I immediately joined the school band. Classical music became my shelter from the foreign, and music eventually became my profession in my new homeland. Through The Emigrants, I look to document similar stories from other individuals through a work of documentary music.

Heard

 
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Orchestra and Wind Ensemble George Lam Orchestra and Wind Ensemble George Lam

Shrewsbury Fair (2017-20)

for concert band (grade 2-3)
commissioned by Oak Middle School, Shrewsbury, MA

Purchase Score and Parts at JWPepper
 
 
Purchase Score and Parts at JWPepper
 

Team

Flute, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet 1, Clarinet 2, Bass Clarinet, Alto Saxophone 1, Alto Saxophone 2, Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone, Trumpet 1, Trumpet 2, Horn, Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion (4 players)

Preface

Shrewsbury Fair (2017) is a three-movement work inspired by locations in the town of Shrewsbury in Central Massachusetts. The work opens with Roundabout March, a short march constructed as a round that describes an imaged parade towards Artemas Ward House on Main Street. Dean Park In Autumn is a short study of the colors found in the iconic New England fall foliage. The work ends with Quinsigamond Race Day, an exciting boat race on the lake that separates Shrewsbury and Worcester.

Heard

  • World premiere at Oak Middle School, Shrewsbury, MA on January 26, 2018, with Anthony Uglialoro, conductor.

  • Shrewsbury High School Concert Band, Shrewsbury MA on April 24, 2018, with Brian Liporto, conductor.

 

Shrewsbury Fair was commissioned by the Shrewsbury Music / Theatre Association for the Oak Middle School Bands, Anthony Uglialoro, director. Supported in part by a grant from the Shrewsbury Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

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Vocal Chamber Music, Contemporary Poets George Lam Vocal Chamber Music, Contemporary Poets George Lam

The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary (2012)

libretto by Benjamin Rogers
for two sopranos, baritone, two violas, and piano

Rhymes With Opera in performance at Mary Flagler Cary Hall, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (June, 2012)

Rhymes With Opera in performance at Mary Flagler Cary Hall, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (June, 2012)

Team

Two sopranos, baritone, two violas and piano

Preface

The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary was written for Rhymes With Opera, for its 2012 mainstage production in New York and New Haven The New York venue was the Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the new DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and I wanted to write a piece that would be intimately connected to the namesake of the hall where it will be premiered. Mary Flagler Cary was heiress to the Henry Flagler’s Standard Oil fortune, and she established the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, which funded music, among many other disciplines. The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary is a meditation on Mary’s life, the spirit of collecting, and the cycle of beginnings and endings for Henry, Mary, their estate, and the Charitable Trust, which winded up operations in 2009.

Special thanks to the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies for allowing Rhymes With Opera to use he portrait of Mary Flagler Cary as a part of the performance of this work.

Heard

  • June 9, 2012 Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music (New York, NY)


  • June 10, 2012 The Big Room (New Haven, CT)

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