Category Archives: Music

Saffron Dreams from Luang Prabang in Laos

18 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Laos, Luang Prabang, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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6 AM in Luang Prabang.

6 AM in Luang Prabang.

Though only a short one hour flight from Hà Nội in Việt Nam, the UNESCO World Heritage City of Luang Prabang in Laos is in another world. Of another world. And still in this world.

Luang Prabang has not been ruined by development. The daily alms ceremony shown above is centuries old and respected with calm observation from bystanders. An awareness campaign throughout the city reminds visitors to keep the ceremony respectful. The city awakes every morning at 4 AM to the sound of a deep temple gong, rousing the monks to meditation. A peaceful life rhythm each day.

This is not a Buddhist Disneyland…

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The Sounds of Green Papaya: Meet Việt Nam’s Composers

11 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Vu Nhat Tan spans the old and the new (Photo by B. Perkinson).

Vũ Nhật Tân spanning the old and the new (Photo by B. Perkinson).

Extended family connects Việt Nam. The serious new music scene in Hà Nội is bursting with energy and everyone here knows it. Two compositional generations separated by war are beginning to join forces. Two elder statesmen, Nguyễn Thiên Đạo and Tốn Thất Tiết, expatriated in the 1950s to Paris, in the process establishing the most sophisticated foundation for new music of any country in Asia.

As the young postwar Hà Nội-born generation moves into its maturity, the two forces will speak together internationally. The rest of the world will be paying notice.

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The First New Moon of October: Đom Đóm Lights up the Night

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Dom Dom's opening night at Zone 9, October 5.

Đom Đóm’s opening night at Zone 9, October 5 with Jakob Riis & Friends in Hà Nội.

Now it’s official. To a packed house of creative music fans, Trần Kim Ngọc’s Đom Đóm Music, the hub for experimental music and art in Hà Nội, opened on Saturday night October 5 to great acclaim. Set for the auspicious date of the first new moon in the lunar cycle for this month, a sense of event was in the air between the numerous Vietnamese and a few eager Europeans and Americans in attendance.

Đom Đóm at Zone 9 is a breaking point for a serious Vietnamese musical avant garde movement to take hold and move onto the international scene in the next decade.

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The Autumn Winds of Tam Cốc

03 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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A Vietnamese boat ride into another world..

A Vietnamese boat ride into another world.

As you’ve been following my blog from Hà Nội you’ve met a lot of new people and places.  But there is another side of Vietnam. Its landscape is one of the most sensual and magical places on earth. Once encountered its inspiration never leaves you.

If you are like me, you keep coming back for more.

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Welcome to Zone 9

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Education, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Zone 9

Zone 9 on the edge of the French Quarter in Hà Nội.

What to do with a run down former pharmaceutical factory built by the French in 1905?  Here’s a recipe: combine young take-on-the-world types from a Hà Nội new generation of smart entrepreneurs. Mix a wide spectrum of design, cuisine, art, music, and what the hell throw in a major day care center, while your’e at it throw in a space for experimental contemporary music, bring home the brain drain from San Francisco and Manhattan, renovate an architectural relic from the French (I kid you not there is a Vietnamese homage to La Durée) and the result is the most amazing urban redevelopment project imaginable.

Welcome to Zone 9.

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The Old Quarter of Hà Nội

26 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Composers, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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“In Việt Nam, time is elastic.”

We’ve arrived smoothly dodging the super typhoon that missed Hong Kong, we’re very thankful and happy to be in the Old Quarter of Hà Nội.

Nguyễn Thanh Thưy, the first of many new friends I’m going to meet here in Hà Nội and who you see in the above photo, joins Jan, me and composer Vũ Nhật Tân for lunch yesterday at Ngôn in the French Quarter of Hà Nội.  She shared a riveting memory of her first trip to the West, which was to Zürich in Switzerland.

She became very nervous and confused when confronted for the first time with a Swiss timetable to use mass transit.  “Are these people insane?  Nothing needs to be this precise!  And people stared at their watches, annoyed if the bus arrived late!”  I think the Vietnamese version of “Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore” started in her homesick young mind.

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A French Hangover, Part 1

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Cambodia, Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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A silk fabric shop in Hanoi.

A silk fabric shop in Hà Nội.

One city casts a spell of identity crisis shared throughout Asia, a complicated emulsion of external anguish married to secret admiration. In visiting Asia over the last decade, to fall in love with Việt Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Japan or the French Concession in Shanghai, I’ve had to acknowledge the ghosts of Paris and France. Over time, my intuition, married to serious study, helped me piece together the terrible results of extractive colonialism juxtaposed with the persistent Asian fascination for, in most cases, a former brutal oppressor.  In order to begin a new chapter making “something wonderful happen,” as I had promised Loi Trinh Le, I knew a great deal of effort would be needed to make sense of the cultural possibilities of the 21st century. But things could not get worse than the horrors of the 20th century wars.

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Maples & Blossoms: My Journey to the East began with Japan

20 Friday Sep 2013

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Young maple leaves at Ei-Kando Temple in Kyoto, May 2013.

Here’s a thought experiment.  Pierre Boulez, Benjamin Britten and John Cage are stuck in a Tokyo elevator for over three hours.  While waiting for a repairman, what do they talk about to pass the time?  Send me your ideas!

As I mentioned in my last post, our first visit to Asia was to Japan in 2002 and started in Kyoto.  A celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary, Jan and I decided to visit her college friend and enthusiastic chamber music collaborator from Boston University days, Mitsuyo Matsumoto.   We were transformed and overwhelmed with the beauty of cherry blossoms, sakura, as Miko guided us around the temples of Kyoto.

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Posted by | Filed under Composers, Contemporary Music, Education, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Loi Trinh Le and my Journey to the East

19 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Education, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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A lotus pond in Hoi An.

A lotus pond in Hội An.

Loi Trinh Le.

As I dream of Việt Nam in anticipation of my return, I dream also of the love that turned me towards the East.  As with most love stories, people get involved and shape the narrative.  My compass, my guide, my mentor and inspiration in this love was Loi Trinh Le.

We called her Trinh.  A diminutive but imposing woman, she was a highly gifted acupuncturist with numerous celebrity patients thrown in for good measure. But everyone had to find her modest house in Culver City for treatments. Trinh navigated me through life’s challenges, imposing Buddhist tough love when necessary and then countering with a warmth of abounding compassion.

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Returning to Hà Nội!

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Hi Everyone!

I am beginning this blog today as my wife Jan Karlin and I prepare to return to Hà Nội, Việt Nam!  Southwest’s  Ascending Dragon Festival was in 2010 and composer Vũ Nhật Tân was in Los Angeles for a two month residency in 2012.

So it is time to begin the next chapter in this love affair I have with Southeast Asia, meeting new contacts and renewing old friendships.  This blog will follow us through the streets of the Old Quarter of Hà Nội (foodies beware!), reunions and adventures.  I am sure this trip will shape part of the next LA International New Music Festival!

Confucius was right:  the greatest joy is visiting with a friend from afar!

Best, best, best,

Jeff von der Schmidt