Hanoi New Music Ensemble + guest soloists from Germany and Vietnam
The Vietnamese world premiere of Hanoise, a new composition of Vu Nhat Than, the Vietnamese first performance of Olivier Messiaen’s famous piece: ‘Quartet for the end of time’ make this evening the pinnacle of concerts of the Hanoi New Music Ensemble in 2019. The two guest soloists from Germany are international well known stars in their field, Nina Janßen-Deinzer, clarinet and Lucas Fels, cello. Together with the Hanoi New Music Ensemble they start the evening with Jörg Widmann’s “Fieberphantasie” for piano, string quartet and clarinet.
Conductor
Honna Tetsuji
Photo: Honna Tetsuji
studied under Kazuo Yamada and Michiyoshi Inoue at the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra and London Sifonietta. Permanent conductor of Osaka Symphony Orchestra (1995-2001), Guest permanent conductor of Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra (1997-2000). Honna was appointed with VNSO as Music Advisor and conductor (2001-2009); he conducted numerous orchestra (including La Scala Phil, Filharmonia London, Hungary State Symphony, Arturo Toscanini Orchestra) and made many concerts with the VNSO.
Artists
Nina Janßen-Deinzer (*1972)
Photo: Nina Janßen-Deinzer
studied in Hanover at the school of Hans Deinzer and completed her studies with a concert exam. She gained first winner awards at ‚Jugend Musiziert‘ at the german musicians competition and at the international chamber music competition in Osaka / Japan. She has been a solo clarinetist of Ensemble Modern from 2006 to 2017. As a solo artist, she had many plays on various festivals like Salzburger Festspiele, Salzburg biennale, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Ultraschall Berlin, Festival NOW Essen, Berliner Festwochen, Forum Festival Moskau and with orchestras like SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg, hr- Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Kremerata Baltica and many more. Since 2015 she teaches as a professor for chamber music at Music College Nuremburg and in addition to that she also teaches contemporary music at Music College Nuremburg.
Lucas Fels (*1962)
Photo: Bernhard Strauss
studied at Christoph Henkel in Freiburg, at Anner Bijlsmain in Amsterdam and at Amadeo Baldovino in Fiesole. He did more than over thousand first plays and for 100 CDs of solo- and chamber music of the 20th and the 21st century. In 1985 he was a co-initiator of ensemble recherche Freiburg, cellist and music executive until 2005. For Arditti String Quartet London he plays cello since 2006. He holds a professors chair at Music And Performing Arts College Frankfurt for interpretative practice and communicating new music since 2013. Masterclasses and lectures at lots of colleges and universities worldwide are hosted by him.
Ngo Tra My (*1972)
Photo: Ngo Tra My
studied at the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music, where she received her diploma in 1994 and a pedagogical exam in 2007. Since 1994 she teaches the đàn bầu at the conservatory in Hanoi. She has performed at festivals in China, Spain, Korea, Scandinavia and Vietnam and has recorded one CD as soloist with orchestra: Lời ru quê hương (Lullaby of the Native Land) – 2001. Since 2008 she is Board Member of the Asian/Korean Orchestra. With The Six Tones, a platform for an encounter between traditional and experimental cultures in Asia and the west, she has toured in Europe, Asia and the USA.
Pham Tra My (*1973)
Photo: Pham Tra My
plays long zither and had a musical talent at an early age. Tra My loves her carrer and has a unique style. She is very strong and accepting, passionate and kind in live as well as in art. Pham Tra My defends the master's degree in music teaching and becomes a member of the Vietnam Musician Association. She was awarded with the title of Meritorious Artist by the state.
The Hanoi New Music Ensemble
Photo: Hanoi New Music Ensemble
is the only professional music ensemble for contemporary music in Vietnam. Its members are amongst the nation’s finest professional musicians, serving also as professors at the Vietnam National Academy of Music and performing with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra or Sun Orchestra.
Composer and artistic director Vu Nhat Tan, and violinist and executive director Pham Truong Son founded the Ensemble in 2015. This was a follow-up of Vu Nhat Tan’s participation in the Ascending Dragon Cultural Exchange and Music Festival 2010, a cultural exchange program between the United States and Vietnam. This event had been initiated by Jeff von der Schmidt, and executive director Jan Karlin and the Southwest Chamber Music (Los Angeles). Since 2015 Jeff von der Schmidt has been regular advisor and conductor to HNME.
The Hanoi New Music Ensemble regularly performs in Hanoi. This year, it also performed in Indonesia and in turn invited the Yogjakarta New Music Ensemble to Hanoi. This cultural exchange was made possible by the Goethe-Institut.
FIEBERPHANTASIE
In “Fieberphantasie” (fever phantasy) from 1999, Jörg Widmann deals with the melodies of Schumann. Widmann describes them as some kind of fever curve: ‘nervous, flattering, febrile’ with ‘countless smaller and bigger wave troughs and wave crests inside of a bigger lining.’ The score consists mostly of notations for realisation with little to no specific pitch but therefore highly detailed instructions for play.
Jörg Widmann (*1973) is one oft the most exciting and versatile composers of his generation. His teachers were Gerd Starke (Munich) and Charles Neidich (Juilliard School New York). He is a regular guest of international important orchestras like the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich or National Symphony Orchestra Washington. He played with conductors like Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiey, Kent Nagano, Sylvain Cambreling, Christoph Eschenbach and Christoph von Dohnanyi. Widmann is a fellow of the scientific college Berlin and member of the bavarian academy of fine arts, the academy of arts Hamburg (2007), the german academy for performing arts (2007) and the academy for science and literature Mainz (2016).
QUATUOR POUR LA FIN DU TEMPS
Literally translated to “Quartet for the end of time” the piece deals with motives from the apocalypse. The french composer Olivier Messiaen wrote the piece, which consists of eight movements as a prisoner of the war prisoners camp in Görlitz. The commanders of the camp allowed him to compose. The rather unusual instrumentation was due to the musicians that were available in the camp: the clarinettist Henri Akoka, the violinist Jean Le Boulaire and cellist Etienne Pasquier. The first play of the piece, in which the composer played the piano, took place 1941 in the camp in front of 400 war prisoners.
Olivier Messiaen (*1908, †1992) was an exraordinary important franch composer and is said to be one oft he most important composers oft he 20th century. He is regarded as a precursor of serial music. His musical learnings started at the age of eleven at the conservatory of paris. His music is structural and ideological influenced by ideas of numbers mysticism, indian rhymes, gregorian music, birds song and music of Claude Debussy and Igor Strawinsky. A special characteristic of his music is furthermore the repeatedly upcoming spiritual energy and links to his deep, catholic faith.
HANOISE (Âm thanh Hà Nội)
The well-known composer Vu Nhat Tan extracts and condenses the sounds of the Vietnamese capital into a piece of contemporary music art.
In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Vu Nhat Tan presents the piece HANOISE written especially for the Hanoi Music Ensemble, another addition to the young treasure of contemporary music in Vietnam.
HANOISE reflects the richness of sound and space of the city: it is a piece where Western instruments from the symphony orchestra and traditional Vietnamese instruments come together. HANOISE is a piece of lived cultural exchange through contemporary music.
New music that honours and sustains the "old" is the goal of the Hanoi New Music Ensemble (HNME). HNME preserves the essence of Vietnam's history and musical heritage without stepping into the direct footsteps of the ancestors. New music, in which sacrifices, beliefs and hopes of the people of Vietnam are mingled.
Connections on an international level enable the exchange of creativity and passion for new music and contribute to cultural understanding. For this reason, we are delighted that for the first time two excellent musicians from Germany will play with the Hanoi New Music Ensemble. Nina Janßen-Deinzer (clarinet) and Lucas Fels (cello) collaborate with two masters of traditional Vietnamese instruments, Ngo Tra My (dan Bau and voice) and Pham Tra My (dan Tranh).
Vu Nhat Tan (*1970)
Photo: Vu Nhat Tan
is one of the most active and well-known composers of his generation. His piece "Five Elements", composed in 2019, had its world premiere in Hanoi in front of 1,000 visitors. Inspired by the Oriental theory of the five elements that make up the world, Vu Nhat Tan's message is to protect our environment.
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