Category Archives: Vietnam

A French Hangover, Pt. 2: Crossing the Long Biên Bridge

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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

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Jan and me on the Long Bien Bridge.

Can you guess the architect of the  Long Biên Bridge in Hà Nội?

Sometimes I don’t think there really are coincidences, just facts. Vũ Nhật Tân eagerly wanted to take us across the Long Biên Bridge via The White Horse Temple in the Old Quarter to the banks of the Red River. We’ve been talking about France and the Việt Nam War a lot while we’ve been seeing each other.  So why not deliver the coup-de-grace and present the history of his country in one place?

This historic bridge shares something in common with the next photo, which you will probably recognize as the city of Paris.

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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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Two Loves Together: From Hà Nội, a Latin Grammy Nomination for Gabriela Ortiz

27 Friday Sep 2013

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

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Gabriela Ortiz, the Frida Kahlo of Mexican music.

Gabriela Ortiz, the Frida Kahlo of Mexican music.

Receiving the news that Southwest’s performance of Gabriela’s Elegía is nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition by Latin Grammy in Hà Nội is a yin yang marriage of two loves of mine, México and Việt Nam.  This news is also an unexpected and brilliant way to overcome jet lag!

Talk about juxtaposition. Here is the balcony view from my Old Quarter coffee shop on Mã Mây St. where I am writing this entry about Gabriela Ortiz:

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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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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