Malcolm Lim | Winspear Centre

Malcolm Lim is the Acting Principal Percussionist of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra; he served as the Acting Principal Percussionist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra for 2021-2024. Malcolm teaches percussion at the Mount Royal University Conservatory of Music and is the musical director of the Calysto Steelband. He served as musical director of the Afro-Brazilian dance and drum ensemble, Calgary Escola de Samba, from 2002 to 2012. Malcolm has taught courses at the University of Lethbridge, led master classes at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and worked as a creativity facilitator at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He has published in Percussive Notes, the journal for the Percussive Arts Society.

Malcolm completed a Bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance from McGill University where he studied with Pierre Beluse and D’Arcy Gray. He also studied under Louis Charbonneau of l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal. Currently he is studying with Matt Howard, Principal Percussionist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mentors and teachers also include Trichy Sankaran (S. Indian percussion), Glen Velez (frame drumming), Boca Rum and Marcos Suzano (Brazilian percussion), Michel Mirhige (Arabic percussion), and Alessandra Belloni (S. Italian Percussion). Malcolm has received Canada Council for the Arts grants to study in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.

Malcolm has shared the stage with Jesse Cook, Amir Amiri, Iskwe, Jamey Haddad, Glen Velez, and Sarah Slean. He has also performed with the samba bateria of G.R.E.S. Estação Primeira de Mangueira (Rio de Janeiro), and the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra.

Malcolm was born in Singapore and grew up in Taber, southern Alberta. Although working in Edmonton means he has to spend a lot of time apart from his wife Barbara and cat Dora, who reside in Calgary, he is happy to be closer to his brother Marc, sister-in-law Chandra, and their three sons Miles, Mikko, and Lawrence. Malcolm is grateful for the early music training he received with the support of his parents Christopher and Betty.

As a migrant, Malcolm has tried to locate artistic meaning in the interaction with the discourse of Europe and the West. His compositions explore the meeting of cultures in the post-colonial landscape, what Edward Said has termed “The Voyage In”. He recently published his first work “Two South Indian – American Rudimental Solos” through Bachovich Music Publications.