Mr. Ming-hang Tam

With his lifelong visions in enriching people’s lives through music, Mr. Ming-hang Tam is an active violinist who enjoys his passion in violin playing since the age of four. His outstanding skills and technique in violin performance, with superb communications to deliver precise teaching points at each lesson, are beloved by his students and their parents. Overall, Mr. Tam is competent, passionate and patient to share his experiences for over 20 years in classical music and violin performance to everyone.

For six consecutive years since August 2013, Mr. Tam has been studying violin performance in prestigious music schools in the United States of America with prominent artists in violin, namely Professor Renée Jolles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York between 2013 and 2017, and Mr. Nicholas Kitchen at the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston, Massachusetts from 2017 to 2019.

He has also performed in solo violin and chamber music masterclasses of notable artists, including Prof. Grigory Kalinovaky, Mr. Elmar Oliveira, Ms. Merry Peckham, all members of the Borromeo String Quartet (with Mr. Kristopher Tong, Ms. Mai Motobuchi and Ms. Yeesun Kim), Mr. Colin Carr, Mr. David Geber, Prof. Ahrim Kim, Prof. Robin Scott, Prof. Sylvia Beaudette, Prof. Daniel McDonough, Prof. Kurt Muroki, Prof. Janet Ying, Prof. Philip Ying, Mr. Sungsic Yang, Mr. Dmitry Sitkovetsky, and Prof. Cho-Liang Lin. His teachers in violin orchestral repertoire include Mr. Jason Horowitz at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Prof. Juliana Athayde, the concertmaster at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recently, Mr. Tam was awarded Academic Honors as graduation honors of his Master of Music Degree at NEC in May 2019, while he received his Bachelor of Music Degree at Eastman in May 2017. Mr. Tam has also been named in the Dean’s List for his academic excellence of multiple semesters at both schools. For his accomplishments in violin performance, Mr. Tam was the recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship at NEC, and the Howard Hanson Scholarship at Eastman, to support his musical studies.

Throughout the years, Mr. Tam has performed in significant concert venues across the states, such as the Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center in New York City, New York, the Boston Symphony Hall, the Jordan Hall and the Paramount Theatre at the Emerson Paramount Center in Boston, Massachusetts, as well as the Kodak Hall at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York. He has also been in critical roles of multiple world premieres, including playing as the concertmaster in the opera “Role Playing Game” by new composer and NEC alumnus Mr. Jacob Shulman in Somerville, Massachusetts in February 2019, tutti violin in NEC Philharmonia for Symphony No. 4 “Chromelodeon” by composer Mr. Aaron Jay Kernis in Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts in April 2018, as well as tutti violin in Eastman Philharmonia for “Letter from Georgia” with Ms. Renée Fleming by composer and Eastman alumnus Mr. Kevin Puts in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York and in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City, New York in November 2016.

For the previous summers between 2015 and 2018, Mr. Tam has performed solo violin and chamber music in several summer music festivals and programs in the United States, namely the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Catskill High Peaks Festival, and the Heifetz International Music Institute. In 2016 at the Bowdoin Festival, he was invited to an interview published on June 2, 2017 by the Portland Press Herald, a local newspaper in Maine, to recall his experience there and his future goals in music, following his successful performance with the first movement of Violin Concerto No. 2 by composer Mr. Béla Bartók.

For his professional work experience, Mr. Tam was honored to be a section violinist at the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra since the 2018/19 season, with Mr. Benjamin Zander as the conductor. He is also a member of the Eureka Ensemble since 2019. For violin teaching, Mr. Tam assumed the positions of Artist-in-Residence and Director of Digital Media at the Suzuki Institute of Boston (SIB) in February 2018. He also joined South Shore Conservatory’s Strings Department as a traditional and Suzuki violin teaching artist in November 2019.

Mr. Tam teaches students ranging from 4 years old to adults in West Roxbury and Hingham, in individual lessons and group classes with traditional approach and the Suzuki Method. With the partnership programs between SIB and public/private schools in the neighborhoods of Boston, Mr. Tam has taught in other schools with the Suzuki Early Childhood Education, namely Berea Seventh-day Adventist Academy in Mattapan, Immigrant Family Services Institute and Boston Teachers Union K-8 Pilot School in Roslindale, Nathan Hale Elementary School in Roxbury, as well as Saint Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the original Suzuki Method from Japan, Mr. Tam has been receiving teacher training from the director of SIB, Mr. Donald R. Becker, who received a teacher’s diploma from the Talent Education Research Institute in Matsumoto, Japan under the tutelage of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki and Ms. Yūko Mori for three years between 1983 and 1986. As part of the training units, Mr. Tam has been focusing on the original violin pedagogy of Dr. Suzuki that Mr. Becker has grasped throughout the Volumes of the Suzuki Violin School.

As a registered Suzuki violin teacher with the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA), Mr. Tam has also studied the Suzuki violin pedagogy with some distinguished Suzuki teacher trainers, including Allen Lieb (CEO of the International Suzuki Association), Thomas Wermuth (former student of Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School), Patricia D’Ercole, Joanne Melvin, and Teri Einfeldt (former SAA Board Chairs), Rolando Freitag (former SAA Board Chair-Elect), Dr. Timothy Durbin, Charles D. Krigbaum, Judy W. Bossuat-Gallic, Christie Felsing, David Strom, and James Hutchins.

Before studying in the states, Mr. Tam has been awarded numerous prizes in solo violin competitions in Hong Kong Schools Music Festival (HKSMF) between 1999 and 2010, including honor in Sea Sound Scholarship for String Concerto, as well as champion and first runners-up in Violin Solo, from Grade Four to Eight, for five consecutive years from 2000 to 2004, to name just a few.

During his studies at Diocesan Boys’ School (DBS; a reputable secondary school in Hong Kong which is equivalent to middle and high schools in the states), Mr. Tam has been in critical roles of its School Orchestra and its Senior String Orchestra between 2008 and 2010, where he assumed the roles of the concertmaster of its Senior String Orchestra and the associate concertmaster of its School Orchestra from 2008 to 2009, as well as the principal second-violin in both orchestras from 2009 to 2010. By winning the champions in the competitions of secondary school large ensembles at HKSMF in the respective years, namely the best senior school orchestra and the best senior string orchestra of the year, Mr. Tam showcased his distinction and successes in leadership for the two DBS Orchestras.

Besides competition prizes at HKSMF, Mr. Tam also received several school awards in music at DBS, such as the Subject Prize in music in 2007, and Outstanding Musician Scholarships (Music) in 2006.

Back in 2005, when Mr. Tam was only thirteen, he has attained distinction in Licentiate of Trinity College London (LTCL) Diploma in Recital in Violin. He also gained distinction in both Associate of Trinity College London (ATCL) Diploma in Recital in Violin in 2003 and Grade 8 Violin awarded by The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in 2002.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Mr. Tam’s early violin teachers at Yip’s Children’s Choral and Performing Arts Centre include Ms. Beedarn Chao, Prof. Shisheng Zheng of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Mr. Wing-shun Li, and Mr. Hon-biu Poon.

For additional information, please visit the links below:

1. YouTube channel of Ming-hang Tam
   youtube.com/c/minghangtam

2. Interview of Ming-hang Tam after the Bowdoin Festival 2016, published by the Portland Press Herald on June 2, 2017
   www.pressherald.com/2017/06/02/qa-with-bimf-musician-ming-hang-tam-violin/