NEWS

16.4.2025

HKU Doming Lam Composition Prize: Première of new works by prize laureates

At the 2026 annual collaboration showcase-event co-organised by the HKU Department of Music and the Faculty of Architecture, Angus Lee led the première performances of two new works scored for mixed chorus and percussion trio by emerging HKU composers, Hok-lam Lai and Ivan Lee. The two works were performed by the HKU Chamber Singers and the leading Hong Kong percussion group, The Up:Strike Project.

Hok-lam Lai’s work, Concrete | Jungle (2025-26), is a deconstructed setting of the poetry of distinguished Hongkong poet, Ping-kwan Leung. The work, which is the first piece in the programme, begins with members of the HKU Chamber Singers distributed among the public entering the Hall. The quotidian sounds of chatter of movement forms a crucial sonic foundation from which the piece to eventually emerge, as the three percussion soloists surreptitiously begin playing their instruments one after the other, and as the density and volume of Leung’s text, at times whispered, others recited and sung, gradually becomes more audible.

Ivan Lee’s work, Invitation to Wine (2025-26), is a dramatic setting of the poetry of Li Po. Navigating between endearing passages of melancholic lyricism and gripping sections of primitive rhythmic drive, the piece extrapolates and remediates the full expressive range of Li Po’s poetry.

Both works were created under the aegis of the HKU Doming Lam Composition Prize, created in 2024 in memory of the legendary composer, Doming Lam, with an endowment of funds from the composer’s daughter, Kathy Lam, a celebrated music broadcaster in Hong Kong. The Prize aims to recognise the University’s emerging composition talents, offering them year-long mentorship under the Music Department’s composition faculty members in addition to the chance of work with a rotating roster of resident guest ensembles and the HKU Chamber Singers. The 2024/25 edition featured the HKU Chamber Singers with the distinguished Hong Kong vocal ensemble, NOĒMA (director: Sanders Lau), with composers Charles Lee and Jonathan Frichot as the edition’s prize laureates.