Born and raised in Hong Kong, soprano Alison Lau is one of the most sought-after concert singers of her generation. Her solo performance in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem was hailed by the Saxon Newspaper for her “pure tone, natural approach and perfectly crafted pronunciation that captured the audience”.
Alison comes from a musical family, she has been an avid soloist and ensemble singer since a young age. As a teenager, Alison sang with the Hong Kong Children’s Choir at numerous choral festivals in Europe and North America. She graduated with a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, and a bachelor’s degree from Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts; she studied classical singing with Peichi Chen, Lisa Saffer and Ella Kiang; and discovered a passion for poetry and song in the Lieder class of Cameron Stowe and Tanya Blaich; she has sang in the masterclass of Barbara Bonney, Peter Harvey, Eduardo Lopez Banzo, Margreet Honig, Andrés Locatelli and Rudolph Piernay.
In October 2021, Alison moved to the Netherlands to specialise in singing Early Music under the guidance of Xenia Meijer at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In the 2022-2023 season, Alison has performed as a soloist in Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri with Ensemble Vocaal Kwarts, Vivaldi’s Nulla in Mundo and Bach cantata BWV 150 with Amsterdamse Bachvereniging, Bach cantata BWV 206 and Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge with the Sweelinckbarokorkest; BWV 1, 19 & 129 with Bachcantates Utrecht, and cantata BWV 112 with Bachcantates Nijmeigen.
Shortly after relocating to Amsterdam, Alison began singing with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir in a Schütz concert in Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, a concert tour to Bachfest Leipzig and Köln, the Messiah in The Netherlands, Germany and France; and Bach’s b-minor mass in the Canary Islands. Alison also joined de Nederlandse Bachvereniging as soprano remplaçant in 2022, with whom she will sing the St. Matthew Passion tour for the third time in 2024. In Autumn 2023, Alison will begin freelancing with Nederlands Kamerkoor.
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Prior to moving to the Netherlands to specialise in Early Music, Alison has established herself as one of the first artists to bring classical music to the main stream music scene in Hong Kong. She was invited to perform in the 2019 New Year’s Eve live broadcast on ViuTV, and was the first classical singer in Hong Kong to record with Decca Records and Universal Music, with whom she released her début album “My Voice & I” to critical acclaim.
Alison’s previous performances include “Una Navidad barroca española” with Al Ayre Español in Laeiszhalle Hamburg and Kammermusiksaal of Berliner Philharmonie in December 2018, a solo song recital in Hong Kong City Hall, and Bach’s B minor mass with Die Konzertisten and Arcangelo in January 2019. In May 2019 she sang Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Opera Hong Kong, and in November 2019 she was engaged to perform at José Carreras’ farewell concert tour in Hong Kong. In 2018-19 she has also taken part in Nova Ensemble’s inaugural Prism Chamber Music Festival as a member of Victoria Consort, a vocal quartet, and Song is Being, a multi-media baroque music project, which has been invited to reprise its performance in Musica Antiqua Takamatsu, Japan, in 2019.
Highlights of the 2017/18 season include her solo début in Görlitz, Germany, performing Brahms’ A German Requiem, a concert with esteemed Spanish baroque orchestra Al Ayre Español in Hong Kong Arts Festival’s Young Friends programme and Die Konzertisten H.I.P. (Historically Informed Performance) Project and the Bach Pilgrimage Series. Alison also sang a series of French mélodie recitals with Music Lab in Hong Kong and in Taipei.
During the 2016/17 season, her performances include Bach’s St. John Passion under the baton of Professor John Butt, and a series of Bach cantatas concerts with Die Konzertisten, CPE Bach's Magnificat with the Hong Kong Bach Choir, a Brahms and Schumann themed song recital with Music Lab in Hong Kong and London, Alma Mahler’s Fünf Lieder with Musica Viva, as well as role début as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi with Opera Hong Kong.
Highlights of the 2015/2016 season were Handel’s Messiah with Die Konzertisten, under the baton of Jonathan Cohen, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Britten’s The Company of Heaven and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. On the song recital stage, she has performed Grieg’s Sechs Lieder and Argento’s Six Elizabethan Songs in ‘Travel in Expression’ with Music Lab, a recital ‘400 years of Shakespearean Songs’ with Musica Viva, and in June 2015, she made her role début as Despina in Così fan tutte.
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Alison was a member of the 2015-17 Jockey Club Opera Hong Kong Young Artists Development Programme led by Dongjian Gong, and was also featured in “Young Music Makers” 2012, a series of documentaries by RTHK Radio 4. Alison’s musical training was supported by the Opera Hong Kong K. Wah International Vocal Scholarship, Foundation for the Arts and Music in Asia Vocal Scholarship, the Andy Anselmo Scholarship in Voice, the NEC Merit Award and Scholarship, the Hong Kong Children’s Choir Vocal Scholarship and the Michael Rippon Memorial Vocal Scholarship. She has won the “Gerhart Hauptmann-Theater” Special Prize at the 22nd Concorso Internazionale per Cantanti Lirici Spazio Musica in Orvieto, Italy, the First Prize at Yokohama International Music Competition in Japan, and the Outstanding Performance Award at the Metropolitan International Music Festival Vocal Competition in New York. In 2017 she was awarded the Certificate of Commendation by the Hong Kong Government’s Home Affairs Bureau.
(updated in spring 2023)
