Category Archives: Music

1,000 Dragons Rising: In the Path of the Ancestors Triumph for the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble

13 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by in Contemporary Music, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Minh Dam Quang, Music, Nguyen Thien Dao, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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The world premiere of Kim Thủy Hỏa by Vũ Nhật Tân.

”Bác Jeff!” breathlessly whispered one of my Vietnamese colleagues, hurriedly finding me back stage as we were all getting ready to perform. “We must wait to start the concert. We have over 1,000 people trying to find seats, more than the auditorium can handle. Uncle Jeff this never ever happen before!”

In the Path of the Ancestors indeed proved to be the right title at the right time for the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble. Post concert noise and chatter continues to flood the city’s cultural discussions while both Vietnamese national and international television networks can’t seem to get enough of me, resulting in very good media exposure for a new music group in its fourth season.

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In the Path of the Ancestors with the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Composers, Contemporary Music, Hamburg, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Minh Dam Quang, Music, Nguyen Thien Dao, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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National treasures of Việt Nam, Thanh Hoài and Xuân Hoạch.

In the Path of the Ancestors is my next concert with the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble. My friends here always find wonderful and poetic titles for our programs, they can’t do otherwise. In a long career devoted to new music, conducting over forty world premieres, numerous recording sessions, securing commissions, animating second performances, planning tours and collaborations, this concert at 20h00 in the Grand Hall of the Việt Nam National Conservatory of Music on Friday March 22, 2019 still looms as a milestone.

Three generations of composers are coming together. My Hà Nội New Music Ensemble will be joined by a cast of national treasures, whiz-bang technology, guests from the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and the light bearing Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin/Đông Kinh Cổ Nhạc led by Đàm Quang Minh. Cue national and international television broadcast by the major network of Việt Nam, VTV1!

For a new music concert? For a new music group four years old? Yes. After thirty years of new music work in the United States, this Vietnamese recognition is, trust me, a genuine milestone.

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Forest Chants & Mountain Walks With New & Old Friends in Kyoto

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by in Buddhism, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Japan, Kyoto, Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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Meeting Maki Takafuji for the first time at Seiryu-den in Kyoto.

The city of Kyoto can be a paradox. The functional train station, workaday streets and boulevards, the normal comings and goings of its citizens, the overall grey quality of most of the recent architecture, all can elicit a potentially ambivalent response. Kyoto is a UNESCO World Heritage City with an extraordinary endowment of timeless shrines, temples, mind boggling handicrafts, legendary ceramics, world class tea and sake production, the legendary home of Noh and Kabuki, and maintains all the splendor of the once ancient capital of Japan. At first appearance, however, these wonders seem very hidden, as if the greatness of Kyoto is itself wrapped in a confusing furoshiki of the modern world.

But whereas the Vatican in Rome is housed in the magisterial architecture of the Renaissance, the sibling city for Buddhism in Kyoto is an ongoing interaction with nature. You will experience more open doors framing a view of nature in a Zen Temple in Kyoto than any Catholic Church in Rome.

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The New Music Gathering Asia with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Hong Kong, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Music, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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We’re always happy to be in Hong Kong!

My extended family nostalgia appears spontaneously as soon as I set foot in Hong Kong. When I was a little boy, a man named Harry Woo often watched me for my parents at our family restaurant at 2601 West Sixth Street in Los Angeles. Harry was their loyal dishwasher and short order cook. On what has, over time, become for me a fateful Saturday afternoon in the 1960s, he showed me a letter he was writing to his family in Hong Kong with his Cantonese calligraphy.

I’ve never recovered from that moment. Harry’s letter to his parents in Hong Kong written in Cantonese taught me the world was a bigger place than I’d ever imagined.

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A Third Season Opening Triumph for the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble

02 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Composers, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Music, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Ton That Tiet, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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Opening night curtain calls in Hà Nội.

”We are friends! Chúng ta là bạn!” said Thanh Hoài in a stage whisper as we reached out to hold each other’s hand, joining together the entire cast of Kim by Vũ Nhật Tân. Receiving the amazing response from a capacity audience for the collaboration of two of the new outstanding arts organizations in Việt Nam, the Đông Kinh Cở Nhạc/Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin and the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble, was a night to remember for us all.

How successful, you ask? Let me put it this way. My return flight is now booked. After recharging at home in California for the Christmas holiday season, I will return to Hà Nội for more hard work and important next steps in January 2018.

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The Eternal City of Huế

07 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Buddhism, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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Eternal Việt Nam and the Sông Hương, the River of Perfume, in Huế. Photo by Lan Hương.

It has been eleven years since I visited the city of Huế, considered the Vatican of Vietnamese Buddhism. Despite the horrific battles fought here in 1968 during the Tết Offensive, a calm spirituality infuses the area. You glimpse this on the long highway road from Đà Nẵng. Sandwiched between busy shops and food stands are more Buddhist temples that I could count.

The language is different. The cuisine is different. The atmosphere is different.

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The Eroica Moment for Việt Nam and the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble

06 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Buddhism, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Ken Burns, Kim Ngoc Tran, Music, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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Composer Nguyễn Minh Nhật in Paris with his mentor, Tốn Thất Tiết.

While Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and PBS turn American attention to the Vietnam War with an important new documentary on September 17th, Jan Karlin and I will be in Việt Nam turning our attention to the third season of the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble. For the first time, Vietnamese composers are writing new works for their own Vietnamese ensemble for a supportive Vietnamese public, guided by their first ever American arts advisors, with trusted friends sending best wishes from Paris on October 21st.

Burns, Novick and PBS are justifiably concerned with the Vietnam War. But Jan and I want us all to truly to move forward, and to do that you must be prepared to see Việt Nam as a country. We firmly believe new music is writing the inspiring next chapter of our story together.

Why not join us in Hà Nội on October 21st and hear for yourself?

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Périgueux & A Most Beautiful Farmers Market in France

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Food, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Music, Paris, Perigueux, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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The delicious red strawberries at the Saturday Farmers Market of Périgueux.

With an apple I will astonish Paris. Paul Cézanne

The impressions of the sights and smells of cuisine, of tea, of sweet and warm baked madeleines, of savory asparagus, permeate the towering pages of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. The still life paintings of Paul Cézanne helped shift perception in the visual arts to a new way of geometric seeing, the French translation of still life, nature morte, a telling Gallic metaphor for a symbolic death. The musical fruits of Erik Satie would astonish a dismissive public when he wrote Trois morceaux en forme de poire.

Cuisine, with all its timeworn clichés, still defines France.

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A Few Berlin Stories & A New Hall for Pierre Boulez

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Composers, Contemporary Music, Diplomacy, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Kent Nagano, Music, Paris, Travel, Uncategorized, Vienna, Vietnam

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2017-06-07 16.49.00

Enjoying Caspar David Friedrich in Berlin

Berliners love to talk – with a blunt directness which is both rude and friendly – and even in their grumbling there is a note of pleasure. Christopher Isherwood

I’ve benefited from a good dose of internal California breathing space after visiting Berlin last month. The city was long overdue for me to experience and this was my first chance. And my lasting impression is not of monuments, museums, concerts or one of the best bus systems on the planet. No, my memory remains fixed on one thing.

Charming, grumbling, and usually laughing Berliners!

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The Hamburg Elbphilharmonie & Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Arnold Schoenberg, Composers, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Kent Nagano, Music, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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2017-06-18 15.11.00

The shining new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

If you’re curious why Alan Gilbert is leaving the New York Philharmonic for Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie, here’s a statistic for you. My friend Kent Nagano’s entire ten concert season at the shining new hall with his Hamburg Staatsorchester is already completely sold out. How long did it take? One hour.

Welcome to Hamburg!

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