This concert will be held in conjunction with the 8th Engaging With Vietnam: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue conference that will take place at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, October 5-7. “Engaging With Vietnam” is an annual interdisciplinary conference focusing on Vietnam. This year the theme of the conference is “Engaging With Vietnam Through Scholarship and the Arts.” This evening is intended as an introduction to both the rich musical history of Vietnam, as well as to the ways in which Vietnamese music has always existed in dialogue with musical genres from other parts of the world.
“Ngô Hồng Quang is a Vietnamese traditional musician from Vietnam presently based in Den Haag. After having taught traditional music at Hanoi Conservatory of Music for some time, he moved to the Netherlands to study composition at the Den Haag Conservatory of Music. His multiple talents can be heard on vocals, including multiphonics & harmonic; Dan Nhi, two-string fiddle, Dan Bau or mono chord, a unique Vietnamese one-string instrument played with bent harmonics with a very vocal haunting sound, instruments from the ethnic minorities from Vietnam like dan K’ny, fiddle with vocal resonator (like an acoustic vocoder); Dan Moi or Jews Harp (with which he delivers sounds that listeners could never imagine possible on such small & simple instrument). Ngo Hong Quang (let’s call him Quang to stay simple ; = ) is a great symbol of what I call “the traditional musicians from today”, those virtuosos from elsewhere who learnt, carry & embody the tradition of their country at its best, but they’re young, starving to open & share their identity with the whole world. They learn from the western world without denying their past. Modernity doesn’t replace tradition, but brings tradition to a new level of liveliness.” (The introduction of Ngo Hong Quang is written by Nguyen Le, a world-class French jazz musician and composer of Vietnamese traditional music. His homepage is http://www.nguyen-le.com/).
Free admission
For more information about the Engaging With Vietnam Conference, visit http://engagingwithvietnam.net/home