• About Jeff von der Schmidt, the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble & LA International New Music Festival

Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

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Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

Tag Archives: John Cage

The 10th Anniversary of the Manila Composers Lab in The Phillipines

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, Jonas Baes, Jose Maceda, Manila Composers Lab, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Phillipines, Ramon Santas, Uncategorized

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Aj Villanueva, Choke Yuan Teng, Choke Yuan Tenh, Chow YunJan, Elliott Carter, Feliz Anne Reyes Macahis, Handwerk Ensemble of Cologne, Jan Karlin, Joan Quinto, John Cage, Jonas Baes, Jose Buencamino, Jose Maceda, Lou Harrison, Luong Hue Trinh, Manila, Manila Composers Lab, Pasig, Peter Edwards, Phillipines, Ramon Santos, Septian Dwi Cahyo, Verne De La Pena, What’s Next?

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The triumphant members of the 10th Manila Composers Lab.

“I feel like I’ve just visited the Bayreuth of the Phillipines,” I said to my gracious host, composer and ethnomusicologist Ramón Pagayon Santos. He’d invited us over for an expansive morning and afternoon conversation, including lunch, the day after the final concert of the 10th anniversary of the Manila Composers Lab.

One critical aspect of my 2019 residency with the Hà Nội New Music Ensemble are my visits to the new music neighbors of Việt Nam. Before arriving in my second home here in Hà Nội, I’ve made fresh contacts with new friends in Singapore and met composers in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand. Before heading home to California I will go to Kyoto in late April after the conclusion of Hà Nội’s fourth season, to follow-up with many friends in the new music world based in Japan’s ancient capital.

I am already convinced, however, that visiting the 10th anniversary of the Manila Composers Lab will undoubtedly be the biggest highlight. I was utterly blown away visiting the unique world of the Phillipines, a place like no other on earth.

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Love & Food in the Time of Cartagena

16 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Cartagena, Colombia, Food, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, LA International New Music Festival, Travel, Uncategorized

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Aguardiente, Caribbean Sea, Carlos Fuentes, Cartagena, Colombia, El Boliche, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, James Joyce, John Cage, KGB Coffee, La Cevicheria, LA International New Music Festival, La Mulatta, Love and Other Demons, Love in the Time of Cholera, Milagros Dulces, Plaza Simon Bolivar

 

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A lavender door in Cartagena, a UNESCO World Heritage City.

“The very life of the colonial city was an illusion of memory.” Gabriel García Márquez Love in the Time of Cholera.

My first impression of Cartagena de Indias was of its doors. Some were closed, others open, but they were all beautiful, redolent of a deceased Spanish power that was ultimately unable to control the collision of races and cultures populating its New World and that still search for ways to share life together. In Cartagena, Beethoven’s Fate slams on doors with weighty brass knockers, ancient Janus opens both ways, while Márquez’s dogmatic Bishop in Love and Other Demons conducts his exorcisms with the eternal pounding of sinister fear.

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Sound Dreams in Los Angeles

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Cambodia, Carlos Chavez, Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Evan Hughes, John Cage, Kyoto, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Bruce Weigl, Cambodia, Carlos Chavez, David Letterman, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Grammy Awards, John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Mineko Grimmer, Nieuw Ensemble, Song Hong Ensemble, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Unsuk Chin, Vietnam War, Vu Nhat Tan, William Kraft

East meets West in Los Angeles.

East meets West in Los Angeles as violist Do Huong Tra My of Hanoi tries Cafecito Organico at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

David Letterman, the revered American comic who has been keeping us up late at night for over 30 years here in the United States, revealed the two components of a good joke. To be funny the joke has to be 1) Obvious and 2) Stupid. Say all the words right and you can cue laughter.

If you are already one of my 4500 blog readers in 80 countries, you know I don’t see my LA International New Music Festival as an independent endeavor. So many ideas go into artistic decisions that adopting a single viewpoint is at the least annoying and at the worst dishonest. My thoughts and plots for the 2015 Festival continue apace, but for this post I thought I’d create an exposition of idea and concept behind the next installment.

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Gamelans & Ganeshas in the Berkshires

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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Asia Barong in Great Barrington, Bali, Berkshires, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Indonesian Gamelan, John Cage, Lake Buel, Longhua Temple, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Route 7 in Massachusetts, Wat Chalong

Longhua Temple in Shanghai.

Longhua Temple in Shanghai.

“The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.”

I like surprises. The opening motto for this post is from Henry David Thoreau’s The Pond in Winter. Sorry, but none of us are as hip as we think we are. I keep urging people to get over themselves and not be indifferent to traditions. Beethoven and Emerson were big fans of the Bhagavad Gita long before the 60s and the Beat Generation.

I’ve spent a lot of time going in and out of Asia since 2002. Multiple trips to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Laos, China and Taiwan, twelve if I’m bothering to count. I’m sure to be back as soon as possible to experience India, Indonesia, Bali, Singapore and Penang, Kuala Lumpur.

Jan and I’ve been hooked by the food and philosophy, the complicated history (I love a good story and just trying to sort out the Soong Sisters is a historical page turner), the music and the landscape, the medical ideas and body use disciplines of yoga and Thai massage, the poetry and the I-ching and Tao Te Ching, but most of all the people, which now means old friends.

People aren’t their governments and Planet Earth is full of wonderful humans. Language barriers? Here’s a tip – smiles don’t need translations or apps.

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A Berkshire Morning Walk to Lake Buel

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Betty Freeman, John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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Berkshires, Betty Freeman, Eikando Temple, Henry David Thoreau, John Cage, Kyoto, Lake Buel, MItsuyo Matsumoto, Quartets by John Cage, Red Fox Music Camp, Seiji Ozawa, Tanglewood

A path in the Berkshire woods near Lake Buel.

A path in the Berkshire woods near Lake Buel.

I awoke yesterday morning to the sound of soft rainfall on the leaves and trees. The birds were an amazingly diverse choir, tweeting and humming and cooing and singing me out of sleep into emerging daylight.

The Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts are a locus for my life. They provide a genuine home for American musicians at Tanglewood in Lenox, where in 1979 I met my wife Jan. Her mother was born in Pittsfield in 1928 and her grandparents are buried there. Her aunt and uncle still live in New Marlborough, her old Cousin Andrew is a farmer in Sandisfield and young Cousin Rebecca is getting married on Saturday in Great Barrington.

But as I heard the rain fall softly I remembered, with birds and rainfall my soundscape as I awoke, music by John Cage inspired by the old colonial composers and Henry David Thoreau.

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Confucius & Columbus: From Chinatown to North Beach in San Francisco

22 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Big Sur, Contemporary Music, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Travel, Uncategorized

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Caffe Trieste, Chinatown in San Francisco, City Lights Bookstore, Eastern Bakery, Finnegans Wake, Golden Gate Bridge, James Joyce, John Cage, Peter Drucker, Rick Wartzman, Russell Freedman, San Francisco, Shakespeare & Company, Ulysses, Vesuvio Bar

A mural on the wall of Eastern Bakery in San Francisco.

The Buddha & The Dragon mural on the wall of Eastern Bakery in San Francisco.

I believe in mystery. Describing cultural magic is tricky. But like you, I know it when I see it or learn of its presence.

As in my mom telling me about the wedding reception in Hollywood she served at Chasen’s for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (yes, missing her I now cry a little inside every time I see them on TCM…). Street food in Hanoi. Sigmund Freud’s house in Vienna. Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Tanglewood. Cherry blossoms in Kyoto. Schoenberg’s living room in Los Angeles. Everything in Paris. Tea in Taipei. Visiting Elliott Carter at his apartment on W. 12th St. in the Village. Big Sur. The Star Ferry in Hong Kong. Diego Rivera murals in Mexico City.

And the energy of a bookstore and its neighborhood in Chinatown and North Beach in San Francisco. City Lights. Vesuvio Bar and Caffe Trieste. Eastern Bakery. The Buddha Bar.

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For John Cage & Betty Freeman in Los Angeles: Yoga from India & Zen from Japan

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Betty Freeman, Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, John Cage, Kyoto, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Uncategorized

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Betty Freeman, Cage 2012, HInduism, John Cage, Los Angeles, Mineko Grimmer, Robert Rauschenberg, Roland Berger, Shalini Vijayan, Vienna Philharmonic, Yoga, Zen Buddhism

Cage looking for his childhood home in Los Angeles (photo by Betty Freeman).

John Cage looking for his childhood home in Los Angeles in 1987 (photo by Betty Freeman).

Though I’ve spent time writing about Southeast Asia, Mexico and our recent Latin Grammy nomination with Gabriela Ortiz, my blog is rooted in my LA International New Music Festival. I am very grateful that since September I’ve acquired over 2,900 readers in 73 countries. My posts will continue to cast a wide net describing the personality of my programming. But with this blog I now want to spend time here at home.

No, I’m not moving to Southeast Asia or Mexico. I don’t need to because I live in LA.

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On The Sugar White Elephant Mountain: Journeys in Thailand

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel

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Chad Cannon, Chen Yi, Chiang Mai, Indian Ocean Tsunami, John Cage, Midori, Morton Feldman, Narong Prangcharoen, Peter Drucker, Phil Jackson, Thailand, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Faith moving mountains in Thailand...

Faith moving mountains in Thailand as a little boy prays for his entire country.

It was around 6:30 A.M. on the morning of December 26, 2004 in California. My wife Jan and I were boarding a flight at the Burbank Airport to San Francisco to proceed on to Bangkok (via Seoul) beginning a long awaited trip to Thailand. Frequent flier mile tickets often route you in strange ways but the price of free airfare is hard to turn down. We were gearing up for a long flight and a little sleepy because of the hour. Over the CNN television monitor we didn’t really notice anything alarming regarding Thailand.

“We have news just in of a major earthquake around the island of Sumatra. More details as they become available.”

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The Flowers of the Months: The Day Autumn Arrived in Hong Kong

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Hong Kong, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Tea, Travel, Uncategorized

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Asia, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Park, John Cage, Lock Cha Tea House, Peter Drucker, Tao Te Ching, Tea

Jan at Lock Cha Tea House in Hong Kong Park.

Jan at Lock Cha Tea House in Hong Kong Park.

Happy New Year for 2014!

I want my first post of the new year to begin with a big thank you to the over 2,000 readers in 62 countries who follow my Los Angeles International New Music Festival blog. From Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong, Mexico to Vietnam, South Africa to India, I’m encouraged by your interest and promise to keep the posts coming on a regular basis.

As promised in my last blog, I’m going to describe the day autumn arrived in Hong Kong this fall as Jan and I ventured into a full day in Hong Kong Park.

Got teacups?

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Tea For Two in Kyoto, Shanghai, Hanzhou, Taipei & Hong Kong

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Education, Food, Hanzhou, Hong Kong, Kyoto, LA International New Music Festival, Southwest Chamber Music, Taipei, Travel, Uncategorized

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Asia, Hanzhou, Hong Kong, Ippodo, John Cage, Kyoto, Ling Yin Temple, Ming Cha, Ryoanji Temple, Shanghai, Taiwan, Tea

The viewing & tea of Haiku master Basho in Kanazawa, Japan.

The viewing & tea pavilion of Haiku poet master Basho in Kanazawa, Japan.

I’ve started writing this post the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. I’m so gratified that over 50 countries have followed my blog in its first three months. Holidays are good moments to rest and reflect. After an energetic trip to Hanoi, Luang Prabang and Hong Kong married to a trip to the Latin Grammy Awards in Las Vegas last week, the combination of Thanksgiving with Hanukkah – Thanksgivakkuh – has put me in a mood to unwind.

And there is no better way to do that than with a slow gong-fu (read complicated) tea ceremony…

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