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

Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

~ A blog about new music, travel and food

Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

Tag Archives: Vu Nhat Tan

A 2015 LA International New Music Festival Photo Album

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Japan, LA International New Music Festival, Laura Mercado-Wright, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Toshio Hosokawa, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Abdiel Gonzalez, Ayana Haviv, Eclipse Quartet, Elissa Johnston, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Javier Alvarez, Jon Lee Keenan, Jordi Savall, LA International New Music Festival, Laura Mercado-Wright, Leopoldo Novoa, Los Angeles, Mexico, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Tembembe Ensemble, Toshio Hosokawa, Vu Nhat Tan

A good reason for smiles with Tambuco at REDCAT.

A good reason for smiles from Jan Karlin and Tambuco at REDCAT.

My friend Ricardo Gallardo, director of the magnificent Tambuco Percussion Ensemble of Mexico City, said it best at the conclusion of our third Los Angeles International New Music Festival. “We are just getting started!” 17 composers from Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Cuba, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Brazil and the United States in 23 works in 5 concerts performed by 45 musicians at REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall played to over 1,000 appreciative audience members. Let’s not leave out 10 U.S. premieres and 5 here on the West Coast, as well as hosting composers Gabriela Ortiz from Mexico and Leopoldo Novoa of Colombia.

We have some exciting photos so let’s take a look at the concerts and the people who made this a not to be forgotten festival.

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2015 Los Angeles International New Music Festival Starts July 7 at REDCAT!

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Hong Kong, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Laura Mercado-Wright, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Toshio Hosokawa, Travel, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Asia, California, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, LA International New Music Festival, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

I love studying scores early in the morning. Maybe it’s because I was born around 8:20 A.M. – some say that’s a good indication of a morning person. Those early hours are undistracted and quiet for learning chords, orchestration, voicings, tempi, interpretation, making all the new details familiar like old friends.

My rule of thumb is to go to sleep each night truly putting the day’s work away. If I can remember everything clearly when I wake up the next morning, I’ve learned just a bit more for the coming performances and then know what to repeat and when to move forward. That makes the next early morning so important for my work habit. And I knew today I’m ready for our LA International New Music Festival starting at REDCAT next week on Tuesday July 7 at 8:30 P.M., with a pre-concert talk at 8 P.M.

Because this morning I got a visitor telling me that just the right energy is coming out of my study!

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YOUNG RICE from Việt Nam arrives in Los Angeles July 9!

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Ascending Dragon, Hanoi, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan, Water Puppets of Hanoi

The Water Puppet Theater in Hanoi, Vietnam

The Water Puppet Theater in Hà Nội, Việt Nnam.

The music and instruments of Việt Nam are captivating. As rich a tradition as any other country in Asia, Vietnamese is also a prestissimo language perfectly suited to the sounds of their evocative culture.

Our Los Angeles International New Music Festival program on July 9 at REDCAT will focus on old enemies and rivals being transformed through music. Cuba, Việt Nam, México and Japan. As Americans we have had complicated relations with all of them, and it often can seem like some of the problems are ongoing.

As Ricardo Gallardo and I kept discussing ideas for this festival, we agreed that music can often succeed where business and politics stumble, and hit upon this concert to open new friendship between old adversaries.

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Complete Programs for the July 2015 LA International New Music Festival at REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall

21 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Japan, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Travel, Vietnam, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Alejandro Cardona, Elliott Carter, Gabriela Ortiz, Gerardo Gandini, Hebert Vazquez, Javier Alvarez, Jorge Camiruaga, Leopoldo Novoa, Masamichi Kinoshita, Mesias Maiahuasca, Takumi Ikeda, Tomoko Momiyama, Toshio Hosokawa, Toshiya Watanabe, Vu Nhat Tan

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall is the new home of the LA International New Music Festival.

Time to order your tickets for the 2015 LA International New Music Festival at REDCAT Theater in Walt Disney Concert Hall!

I am happy to announce the complete programs for all five concerts between July 7 and July 15. All concerts begin at 8:30 PM with a pre-concert talk at 8 PM.  My ensemble, Southwest Chamber Music, will be joined by our old friends from Mexico, the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, new friends here in Los Angeles, the Eclipse String Quartet, and vocal soloists Ayana Haviv, Laura Mercado-Wright, Elissa Johnston, Jon Lee Keenan and Abdiel Gonzalez. Have a good look at the concerts, and you’ll find the ticket information easily!

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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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The Old Inn on the Green: Colonial Cuisine in New England

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, John Cage, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Ascending Dragon, Barry Lyndon, Berkshires, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nejaimes Liquor Store, New England, New Marlborough, Oliver Knussen, Song Hong Ensemble, Stanley Kubrick, The Last of the Mohicans, The Old Inn on the Green, Vu Nhat Tan

 

Twilight fog in New England.

Twilight fog in New England at The Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough.

There is an unescapable magic in the New England countryside of the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts. The legendary fall foliage, the evanescent green of spring, the fireflies of summer, the winter white snow fall.

And this post is a story for my many curious and interested readers in over 80 countries around the globe. America is a complicated country, with huge frustrations, a complicated historical legacy concocted from British, French and Spanish colonial interests, and often maddening contradictions. There’s nothing like a good meal and a good book to help you start to understand a people and their country.

Do yourself a favor and make a reservation at The Old Inn on the Green.

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Hanoi in Hollywood 3

01 Thursday May 2014

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

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Betty Freeman, Bruce Weigl, Claude Debussy, Elliott Carter, Emperor Bao Dai, Hanoi, Igor Stravinsky, LA International New Music Festival, Leonard Bernstein, Los Angeles, Mark Swed, Paris, Song Hong Ensemble of Hanoi, Ton That Tiet, Venice Beach Walkway, Vu Nhat Tan, Walt Disney Concert Hall

 

Song Hong selfie going up Bunker Hill to Disney Hall.

Song Hong selfie going up Bunker Hill to Disney Hall.

I’ve always thought of Los Angeles as the New Vienna of classical music. Because if you care about the 20th century story of classical music, the chapters about LA are page turners.

Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky for monumental starters. Martha Graham is from Santa Barbara cutting her teeth here as a young woman. John Cage is born here in 1912 (and Merce Cunningham dances in the world premiere of Appalachian Spring, which was composed mostly when Copland was at MGM). Erich Wolfgang Korngold establishes the film score and let’s be culturally honest and admit that movies have had an influence on the world. Pierre Boulez conducts his American debut at the Monday Evening Concerts, the oldest continuing series of new music in the world. And the LA Philharmonic’s Minimalist Jukebox Festival this season proves that a big institution can move forward.

And God bless Betty Freeman, who commissioned everybody and took pictures of them all (mine with Elliott Carter and Oliver Knussen are great lifetime memories). Driving past Hillcrest Dr. in Beverly Hills where she lived, just up the road from where I grew up in West Hollywood, never feels the same anymore……

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Hanoi in Hollywood!

25 Friday Apr 2014

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

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Arnold Schoenberg, Ascending Dragon, E. Randol Schoenberg, Hanoi, Helen Mirren, Hollywood Farmers Market, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Pie 'N Burger, Ryan Reynolds, Song Hong Ensemble of Hanoi, The Woman in Gold, Ton That Tiet, Venice Beach Walkway, Vu Nhat Tan

Song Hong Ensemble violinists Son and To Trinh at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

Song Hong Ensemble violinists Phan Thi To Trinh and Pham Truong Son at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

I began blogging about my LA International New Music Festival on September 17, 2013. What jumpstarted my story telling was a return trip to Vietnam, my fifth, to reconnect with old friends in Hanoi and see what new developments were underway in their one-of-a-one city, a fascinating burg if there ever was one.

My blog is now read in 78 countries with 3600 readers, so a short recapitulation is in order. My attraction for Vietnam is guided by two of the most important people in my life, my trusted acupuncturist Loi Trinh Le and my mother Louise. You can read about Trinh (her English name) in my second post from September. And that September 17th date when I started my blog?

That auspicious date would be my mother’s birthday. She’s brought me plenty of good luck hovering like an angel over all of my work in Vietnam. And mom would be thrilled about the recent visit to LA from our friends in Hanoi, the Song Hong Ensemble!

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