That credo has defined his career, including after he moved from Hong Kong to Boston in 2022. He’s immediately a solo performer based in Boston, and plays with fellow percussionist Abby Fisher in the Fisher Lau Project, and with his Hong Kong group the Up:Strike Project, Lau aims to “subvert the dominant culture,” he said. The percussion world, he added, is “very cis white male.”
“My pieces and my projects are around the intersectionality of me being queer and Asian,” he said. His mission: to “democratize contemporary track with high-caliber performance and a whimsical twist.”
Lau has been tapped for a spring Open Doors Performing Arts Residency at CROMA Space, part of an Arts Action Consortium program supported by the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office for Arts and Culture. He’ll play composer Ken Ueno’s “New Model Asian” there in May.
Where to find him: www.matthewlaumusic.com/
Age: 38
Lives in: South End
Making a living: Lau is a full-time touring creator.
Studio: The musician has painted the walls of the tiny studio in his South End apartment pink, squeezed his 102-inch-long marimba into a 103-inch-wide space, and set up the smaller vibraphone opposite it.
“Percussionists are hoarders,” Lau said. His move to Boston from Hong Kong with his husband was a significant downsize, so he brought only rarer instruments, such as an Aztec death whistle.
“I have a whole studio in Hong Kong still with all my gear. This is about 5 percent of what I have,” he said. “It’s a cleanse.”
How he started: “My elementary school had a band program. I was supposed to play the tuba, but being a tiny, skinny little kid, my mom was like, ‘no, that’s not going to happen.’” Lau said. He was already playing piano. “We chose percussion.”
What he makes: The percussionist’s repertoire spans melodic jazz and atonal contemporary track — “All these things that make me who I am,” he said. One piece weaves in disco.
“Contemporary track has a stigma of being very difficult to understand and very academic. It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “Why can’t I make it fun? If I can make my mom laugh with this piece of track, that’s a good benchmark. It’s like I’m having a conversation with her in gibberish.”
How he works: On the road. In the last few weeks, Lau played in Mexico City, Bucaramanga, Colombia, and he’s at the Percussive Society International Convention in Indianapolis Nov. 12-15.
He employs the Pomodoro Technique to practice. “A 25-minute session plus five-minute break. There’s a timer,” he said. “You increase productivity that way.”
Advice for aspiring musicians: Lean into your own aesthetic. “If you look hard enough, you will find your community and you will be pushed in the right direction. You will find that you’re not alone. People are doing the weird things that you’re doing.”
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