KAM Lap-Kwan studied composition, music theory and musicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts (MA) and the University of Vienna (MPhil, PhD) with the support of several scholarships from the Alban Berg Foundation and the Austrian government. In addition to decades of teaching at the Music Institute of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and at the Graduate Institute of Musicology at National Taiwan University (as adjunct faculty), he has also held visiting positions at the Music Department of the University of Hong Kong (Fall 2010), the Musicology Department of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Spring 2011), and the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC, Spring 2019).
During his tenure at NCTU, Kam was responsible for core courses such as introduction to music research, and the history and aesthetics of European music. He also developed new courses like "Music and Modernity," "Notation and Recording as Historical Sources," "Global Perspectives on the Epistemology of Music," "Music, Technology, and Society since 1877," and "Sight and Sound of Hong Kong Cinema 1997." Over the years, he successfully secured more than ten million funding from the NSTC, inviting several international scholars to guest lectures for several weeks to a semester respectively, acquiring scores and literature related to European music history from 1700 to 1945 (2008–2011), organizing with the Austrian Office Taipei the exhibition "Klimt and Vienna 1900" and performances (2013) and with a British Academy scholar the international symposium "Sound & Listening in Sino-Western Perspective Around 1800" and lecture series (2015).
Kam was involved in initiating the Taiwan Musicology Forum in 2005, and chaired the academic committee for the 2nd Biennial Conference of the Regional Association for East Asia of the International Musicological Society (2013). He also served on the international advisory board of Journal of the Royal Musical Association (2014–2019) and the editorial board of Formosan Journal of Music Research (2017–23).
His research focuses on comparative music historiography (Austria, Taiwan, Canada), Mahler and Viennese modernism, as well as film sound and music studies. He believes that musicology is not only about the construction of knowledge but also the pursuit of meaning.
Recent publications: “Between Musicology and Mythology at the Stunde Null: Austria’s 950th ‘Birthday’ and the 50th Anniversary of Bruckner’s Death,” in Dreams of Germany: Musical Imaginaries from the Concert Hall to the Dance Floor (New York: Berghahn, 2019); “Traditional Music, Alternative Modernity, and Internal Colonialism: Reassessing the Campaigns for National Music and Folk Songs in Taiwan,” in Decentering Musical Modernity: Perspectives on East Asian and European Music History (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019).
2011 spring: 49th Foreign Research Grants for Scientific and Technological Personnel of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
2021/22: Award for Teaching Excellence in the adjunct faculty category, National Taiwan University.
2021/22: Award for Excellence Senior Teacher, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
2022/8/1: Early retirement.