Andrea Lam ’04AD reaches Van Cliburn semifinals

Pianist Andrea Lam ’04AD has been selected as one of the twelve semi-finalists in the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition. On the Van Cliburn Blog, Mike Winter has written: "With breath-taking pianissimos and phrasing, she found colors and depths in the music I never knew existed." In the semi-final round, pianists perform a one-hour recital as well as a chamber music program with the Takács Quartet. The competition can be viewed live at www.cliburn.tv; Lam will perform with the Takács Quartet on the evening of Saturday, May 30.

Read a Q&A with Lam here, and read some reviews of her performances here, here, and here.

Named for the pianist Van Cliburn, winner of the First Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow (1958), the Van Cliburn Competition is one of the most prestigious of its kind worldwide. It was first held in 1962 and has been repeated every four years since then. A complete list of the twelve semi-finalists for 2009 is available on the Cliburn Competition's website. After the semifinal round, six pianists will vie for top honors in the final round.

Australian pianist Andrea Lam began her musical training at age five. At thirteen she won the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Quest Competition Viewer Choice Award, which led to debuts with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Since then she has played with all of Australia’s major orchestras, and has also performed in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States, collaborating with such conductors as Michael Christie, Edo de Waart, Alan Gilbert, and Christopher Hogwood. A graduate of the Yale School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, she will record two Mozart concertos with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in July 2009.  More information is available at www.andrealam.com.