Biography
www.matthewkam.com
Pianist Matthew Kam is acclaimed for his fine musicianship and technical accomplishment. A critic in Australia’s The Age described him as an “engaging young pianist who rises above the note-spinners; an interesting musician, one who shows a winning potential to take you further into challenging music”. Born in Borneo, Malaysia, Matthew and his family later moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1992. There he came to the attention of Max Cooke (former pupil of Alfred Cortot in the 1940s), who immediately took to Matthew’s innate musical maturity and decided to accept him as one of his protégés at the age of sixteen in 1996.
Since then, Matthew has gained considerable performing experience in Australia and graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2005, appearing as a soloist with the Melbourne University Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. After winning the coveted Australian National Piano Award 2004 and generous sponsorship from the John Tallis Foundation, he moved to England for further training at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2005. There in Manchester he completed a Masters and Postgraduate Diploma, followed by a two-year Junior Fellowship in Solo Piano in 2009, studying with Helen Krizos and Nelson Goerner. In the past, Matthew attended the Tanglewood summer programme 1999, Wiener Musikseminar 2003, Russian Piano XXVII Masterclasses 2003 and Beethoven Chamber Music Course 2006 at the Britten-Pears School Aldeburgh. Matthew has worked in masterclasses with Charles Rosen, Kathryn Stott, Philippe Cassard, Stephen Hough, Elisabeth Leonskaya, Paul Badura-Skoda, John Damgaard, the late Mark Ray, and members of the Endellion Quartet, Gould Piano Trio and Florestan Trio. Former teachers from his youth also included Elizabeth Chiew, Yap Cheng May, Milada Tarka, Kit Young, Akiko Nakamura and Loo Bang Hean.
In the UK, Matthew gave his solo debut recital in the Manchester Bridgewater Hall for the Manchester Midday Concerts Series in 2008. His performances of Rautavaara’s First Piano Concerto with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra for the RNCM and Lancaster International Concert Series won praise from the composer himself, who later wrote to say: “Your rendering of the concerto is perfect. Your playing is full of drama and also with great lyrical expressiveness.” Other highlights include recitals for the Bath Recitals Artists Trust, Rochdale Music Society, Peterborough Festival, Second Glance Festival and RNCM Festivals promoting music by Shostakovich, Schubert, Scarlatti, Ruders, Ravel and Messiaen. An adjudicator and guest soloist for the HSBC International Classics Piano Festival 2008 in Malaysia, Matthew also toured his native country giving recitals in the past. Performing in concerts together with Australia's renowned Team of Pianists, they toured Western Europe (France, Germany, Austria and Italy) in 2002 and 2003. He has also performed in Spain, Singapore, Taiwan and in the Tanglewood Festival, USA in the past.
Matthew is an avid chamber musician. Highlights of interesting past performances in chamber music include Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Ruders’ De Profundis for two pianos and percussion, and, together with the former Estrella Piano Trio, a London premiere of John Casken’s Piano Trio. Matthew is currently in a cello and piano duo partnership with LiLu, and both of them have been recently selected to be artists on the International Ensemble 2010 of Concordia Foundation in London. In chamber music recitals, he has also collaborated with a number of associate artists including Josephine Vains, Zoë Black, Cameron Hill, Emma Skillington, Merewyn Bramble, Ye Lian He, Fiona Corston, Elina Yasumoto, Carissa Christianto, You Mi Lee, Ta Ton, Sijie Chen, Nelida Lopéz, Emille de Roubaix, Ozan Evruk, Natalie Dick, Rowena Calvert, Philip Higham and Jonathan Martindale.
On recordings, Matthew can be heard performing masterpieces by Brahms, Fauré and Rautavaara on the Schimmel Artists Collection CD [MCD346]. Together with Helen Krizos, they recorded a part of the film soundtrack to “Of Time and the City”, Terence Davies’ multi award-winning homage to Liverpool, which is now available on DVD worldwide. Many of Matthew’s solo and chamber music performances have been captured live on recordings. He has broadcast and been interviewed on ABC Classic FM (Australia), MBS FM Network (Australia), and BBC Radio 3 (UK).
In competitions, Matthew was awarded, apart from First Prize in the Australian National Piano Award 2004, the Special Prize ‘Best Performance of Music Written after 1950’ specifically for his rendition of Rautavaara’s “Fire Sermon” Piano Sonata. Other significant prizes won in Australia include the Hepzibah Menuhin Memorial Award, Margaret Sutherland Bursary, 3MBS-FM Young Performer of the Year Award and National MBS Young Performers Award. In Austria, he was awarded the Doblinger Prize in the Wiener Musikseminar Competition 2003. He was the highest prizewinner of the Malaysian National Piano Festival 2000 and the first Yamaha Piano Scholarship recipient for Manchester in 2006. An RNCM Gold Medal Finalist 2007, Matthew was awarded numerous college prizes and bursaries during his further studies in England. From around the world, he was one of the few to have been selected to play in the Leeds International Piano Competition 2009.
