Yvonne Lam – Violinist | Educator | Collaborator

Grammy Award-winning violinist Yvonne Lam is known for performances that challenge, delight, and disarm audiences around the world. With a fearless aesthetic, technical brilliance, and deep musical insight, she is a passionate advocate for new music and boundary-pushing artistic collaboration.

A champion of contemporary composers, Yvonne has premiered over 100 commissioned works. Her 2023 debut solo album, Watch Over Us, was inspired by a work written for her by Nathalie Joachim and features music by Missy Mazzoli, Anna Clyne, Kate Moore, Katherine Balch, and Eve Beglarian.

Yvonne spent eight years touring internationally as Co-Artistic Director and violinist of Eighth Blackbird, collaborating with ensembles such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Tasmanian Symphony. With Eighth Blackbird, she recorded three albums, earning a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Filament. In 2017, she co-founded the Blackbird Creative Lab, a tuition-free mentorship program for emerging performers and composers dedicated to the ensemble’s mission of innovation, access, and new music advocacy.

As an educator and mentor, Yvonne has taught and lectured at institutions across the U.S., with extended residencies at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Chicago, and University of Richmond. She is currently an Associate Professor of Violin and Coordinator of Chamber Music at Michigan State University.

Before her tenure with Eighth Blackbird, Yvonne was Assistant Concertmaster of the Washington National Opera Orchestra and Associate Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. She has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Auckland Philharmonia, among others. A laureate of multiple international competitions, she was awarded the Silver Medal at the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, and received top prizes at the Liana Issakadze, Pasadena Instrumental, and Bronislaw Kaper Awards, as well as special prizes for outstanding performances of commissioned works.

An avid chamber musician, Yvonne has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia, Music From Angel Fire, Yellow Barn, Taos, and Twickenham Fest, sharing the stage with artists such as Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Gil Kalish, Ida Kavafian, Paul Katz, and Anthony Marwood. She has toured with Musicians From Marlboro and Puerto Rico’s musica aperta, and maintains an ongoing collaboration with jazz bassist/composer Matt Ulery, appearing on two of his albums.

Yvonne also embraces cross-disciplinary performance, working with experimental group Every House Has a Door on projects at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago, engaging visual artists, writers, and musicians in site-specific works.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Yvonne began studying the violin by mistake, thinking it was a guitar. Refusing to admit she was wrong, she persisted, studying violin and piano at the Colburn School, continued at the Peabody Institute, and earned her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music and Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. To this day, she still hasn’t learned to play the guitar even though there are at least two in her basement.

Yvonne has lived in nearly every major East Coast city (except Boston) and spent nearly a decade in Chicago. She now lives in East Lansing, Michigan, with her husband and two sons.