Take a moment to ease your mind and enter a musical dreamscape as 17-year-old Zack Lam performs Waltz No. 7 in F Minor by Leo Ornstein. Zach’s impressive use of dynamic range enhances the dreamy feel of this haunting piece.
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Bethesda, Maryland Zack performs on Show 458.
Zack Lam (piano), 17, from Bethesda, Maryland, is a junior at the IB Magnet Program of Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland. He has studied with Dr. Marjorie Lee of Vienna, Virginia for six years. He was the first-prize winner of the 2023 Virginia MTNA Senior Piano Competition, representing Virginia in the MTNA Southern Division Piano Competition, the second-prize winner of the Bradshaw and Buono Piano Competition, and the second-prize winner of the 2024 Enkor International Piano Competition. Zack has won prizes at forty regional, national, and international competitions, performing at Van Cliburn Hall, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and George Mason University Center for the Arts. In June 2024, he attended the 44th PianoTexas International Festival in Fort Worth. He has previously been featured in From the Top’s Daily Joy Series. In the past few years, he has taken masterclasses with Arie Vardi, Robert McDonald, Peter Takacs, Tamas Ungar, and Enrico Elisi, among others. Zack will be playing Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Naptown Philharmonic Orchestra in June 2025 at Maryland Hall in Annapolis.
Zack began playing the piano at age eight under the tutelage of Mrs. Hyun Park, who instilled the importance of discipline and a love for music at a young age. He currently studies with Dr. Marjorie Lee, who has reshaped and refined the way Zack looks at and appreciates music.
Zack is a strong proponent of venturing outside the standard repertoire. In the next few years, he plans to include several underappreciated piano composers in his programs. This year, he has included Leo Ornstein, and later, he plans to program piano works by Georges Enescu, Percy Grainger, Samuil Feinberg, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Sigfrid Karg-Elert, and Kaikhosru Sorabji.
He is also active in music-related community service, volunteering for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Tacy Foundation in community and cultural outreach. Outside of piano, Zack enjoys writing poetry and essays, studying history and economics, and debating current events and philosophy.
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