Category Archives: Music

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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2017-05-27 10.18.45

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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Nine Chapters of the Rain at the Manzi Center with the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble, Friday May 5

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Diplomacy, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Kim Ngoc Tran, Music, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Paris, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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The Hà Nội New Music Ensemble will be at the Manzi Art Center on Friday, May 5.

2017 is the Year of the Fire Rooster. Which means that, if you appreciate the worldview of Asian lunar astrology, it’s a time used best for ambitious planning and strategy. Political events will demonstrate obnoxious “Cock-a-Doodle-Doo’s!”, from missile tests launched by Pyongyang, protest marches in the United States, Brexit negotiations between London and the EU, or another divisive election, this time in France. Add the element of FIRE to your alarm clock and you’ll at least understand the shared global anxiety about coming events.

However focusing, perhaps nervously, on these incendiary realities misses the best opportunity provided by the Year of the Fire Rooster. There is no need to panic.

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The Markets of Mérida and Valladolid with a Glass of Xtabentún

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Chichen Itza, Cobá, Food, Merida, Mexico, Music, Paseo de Montejo, Travel, Tulum, Uncategorized, Uxmal, Valladolid, Yucatan

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2017-02-12 11.39.38

Happy to meet the owner of Pescaderia La Tempesta in MEérida.

“…poor México, poor United States, so far from God, so near to each other.” Carlos Fuentes The Crystal Frontier

“Hola, amigo gringo!” The friendly fishmonger of Pescaderia La Tempesta looked at me kindly as I was admiring his catch of the day at the Mercado Lucas de Gálvez in downtown Mérida, the capitol city of the Mayan Yucatan.

“I’ll hire gringo immigrants when La Naranja finally drives you loco! Come here, put on an apron and visit my shop.” Little did my new friend know that I’d grown up in a white apron, working for my parents in our family restaurant. I was not a fish out of water.

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In the Land of the Jaguar: My Mayan Diary of the Yucatán

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Chichen Itza, Contemporary Music, Gabriela Ortiz, LA International New Music Festival, Mexico, Music, Sian Ka'an, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Tulum, Uncategorized, Uxmal, Yucatan

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The Pyramid of Kulkulkan at Chichén Itzá.

“Trust me, you will find your life divided,” predicted my best friend Ricardo Gallardo, director of the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble in México City. “There will be your life before the Yucatán, and then your life after the Yucatán.”

And Ricardo was right. After experiencing the vanished myths blending with the contemporary reality of the Maya Empire for the first time, a world that still spreads itself from Chiapas and the Yucatán Peninsula in México south to Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador in Central America, I am forever changed.

A visit to the birthplace of the sky? You can find it in the Yucatán.

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A Question of Continuity for the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by in Arnold Schoenberg, Bela Bartók, Contemporary Music, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Igor Stravinsky, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall, William Kraft

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Rehearsing a new quartet by 19 year old Nguyen Minh Nhat.

Rehearsing a new string quartet by 19 year old Nguyễn Minh Nhật.

The New York Times launched a series of articles the weekend of January 8 to focus attention on the Vietnam War, or from a different perspective, the American War we fought in Việt Nam. This season of bizarre political transition makes the series well timed for the American reader. The obligatory colon in the title sums it up. Vietnam: The War That Killed Trust. Before the first article begins, the editorial introduction states “the legacy of the war still shapes America, even if most of us are too young to remember it.”

And some us are old enough to remember it.

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East Meets East: The Hà Nội New Music Ensemble and The Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin on November 4

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Composers, Contemporary Music, Diplomacy, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Kim Ngoc Tran, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

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A handshake contract with my good friend Dam Quang Minh in Bac Ninh.

A handshake contract in Bằc Ninh with my good friend Đàm Quang Minh of the Ancient Music Ensemble of Tonkin.

I am happy to announce an important development for serious music in Việt Nam. On Friday November 4th at the second concert of the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble we will begin a long term collaboration with the Ancient Music Ensemble of Tonkin. As an American arts advisor to new music here, I’m proud to have been a catalyst for this long overdue fraternity of friends, and should you be in Hà Nội, make plans to join us at 8 PM in the Grand Hall of the Việt Nam National Academy of Music in a concert honoring the 60th anniversary of the Academy’s founding.

It’s been quite a busy time since I arrived in early September.  Not to mention the monster crowd that greeting our opening concert at L’espace on Sunday!

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