M. Lamar writes songs that are at once a product of his African American heritage drawing
heavily from the negro spiritual. Combined with his operatic voice and piano playing that is at
once interested in western classical music and dissonant black metal Lamar’s sound makes one
think that things are so catastrophic that the world might end at the conclusion of one of his
tracks.
M. Lamar is a composer who works across opera, metal, performance, video, sculpture and
installation to craft sprawling narratives of radical becomings. Lamar holds a BFA from The San
Francisco Art Institute and attended the Yale School of Art, sculpture program, before dropping
out to pursue music. Lamar’s work has been presented internationally, most recently at
Kunstgebäude Stuttgart, Funkhaus Berlin, Old First Church San Francisco, TBA21 Art Gallery,
Vienna, Austria, The Peabody Museum, Salem Massachusetts, CCA, Glasgow,
The Meet Factory Prague, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust New York, The
Kitchen New York, MoMa PS1’s Greater New York, Merkin Hall, New York, Issue Project Room
New York, The Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco; Human resources, Los
Angeles;Wesleyan University; Participant Inc., New York; New Museum, New York; Södra
Teatern, Stockholm; Warehouse9, Copenhagen; WWDIS Fest, Gothenburg and Stockholm; The
International Theater Festival, Donzdorf, Germany; Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New
York; Performance Space 122, New York; and African American Art & Culture Complex, San
Francisco; among others.
Mr. Lamar continues to study classical and bel canto technique with Ira Siff, and is a recipient of
a 2016 Jerome Fund Grant for New Music (JFund), a 2016 NYFA Fellowship in Music and
Sound, The Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015), Harpo Foundation (2014-2015), and Franklin
Furnace Fund (2013–14).