Events
Shun Hing Lecture In Arts and Humanities by Dr Lam Bun-ching on “River Flows, Moon Moves Stone: Poetry – Images – Music”
5 Nov 2013
4:30 pm
The Lee Hysan Concert Hall, Esther Lee Building, CUHK
Dr Lam Bun-ching is a prominent Chinese composer. She was born in Macau in 1954 and started studying piano when she was seven. She gave her first piano recital at fifteen. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1976, Dr Lam was granted a scholarship from the University of California in San Diego, where she studied composition with Bernard Rands, Robert Erickson, Roger Reynolds and Pauline Oliveros. Dr Lam received her PhD Degree from the University of California in San Diego in 1981. She was then invited to teach composition, music theory and piano at Cornish College of the Arts.
Dr Lam is a renowned composer and her unique musical voice reflects cultural boundaries both in Chinese and Western musical idioms. Her compositions have been recognized through numerous awards, including first prizes at the Aspen Music Festival (1980), the Northwest Composers’ Symposium (1982), the Prix de Rome (1992) and the Lili Boulanger Award (1992). In 1987, she received the highest honour at the Shanghai Music Competition, the first international competition for composers to be held in the People’s Republic of China. In 1998, she received a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 2002, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her exceptional creative contribution to the arts. Dr Lam’s compositions have been programmed in music festivals around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Dr Lam gives her unwavering support to educating young people. She was invited as one of the guest speakers in the Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series of Chung Chi College. Dr Lam was honoured as the Siu Lien Ling Wong Visiting Fellow in 2012 to share her experience. She was also invited to be a composer-in-residence with the Macao Orchestra and to conduct composition classes and workshops in Hong Kong.
3943-8893
Over the years, as a composer I have always sought inspiration in poetry. I have set a number of poems to music in different languages and some of them also exist in Artist Book form. In this talk, I would like to share my work in transforming text from one medium to another, and explore the multiple interpretation of language.
