One of Canada’s most versatile and sought-after young composers, Kevin Lau (born in 1982), has been commissioned by some of Canada’s most prominent artists and ensembles, and his work has been performed internationally in the United States, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. A prolific composer of orchestral, chamber, ballet, opera, and film music, he served as Affiliate Composer of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 2012 to 2015. To date, he has produced seven works for the TSO. Shortly after, he was commissioned to write two ballets with choreographer Guillaume Côté: a full-length ballet (Le Petit Prince) for the National Ballet of Canada and a half-hour ballet (Dark Angels) for the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He served as Composer in Residence for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra from 2021 to 2023.
The NAC Orchestra’s debut album in a series exploring the tone poems of Richard Strauss fuses his creative brilliance with contemporary works by Kelly Marie-Murphy and Kevin Lau.