KVT’s second night at New Music Meeting

Magnificent Musical Conversations at The Youth Theater

As the Goethe Institute is one of the innovative sponsors for the Hanoi New Music Meeting 2009, I should start with Goethe’s description of chamber music: 4 rational people conversing.

Another definition is: any art music performed by a small number of performers with one performer to one part.

On Friday night at the Youth Theater the local and international musicians and composers of new music presented 4 improvisations of their new, collaborative compositions. Some pieces will hopefully move into the repertoires of classical new music groups world wide. I like to think of it as chamber music because the compositions we heard slot nicely into the lexicon of modern classical music and for a traditional audience the traditional terminologies will sometimes make the new forms acceptable.

The musical conversations were intelligent, very rational, very, very good. As a visual feast they were great. As a listening treat they were impressive. At first I wondered if they had all decided to use the same tempo format: slow and soft building succinctly to furious and loud, the sort of tempo that pleases the audience as the music rushes to an all stops out finale. But in the final piece with eleven performers dialoguing expertly and excitingly the dramatic climax folded back on itself and faded to an elegant whisper.

While it is obvious that New Music will remain a fringe genre for some time to come, it is essential that it be given a format to develop, coalesce, and where competent musicians and composers can converse and experiment. Where better to have a New Music conference or, better still, festival, than in Vietnam where the population of classical musicians is young and obviously capable of accepting and adapting to the genre and where a young audience exists that can be readily educated.

With a driving force like internationally renowned new music composer and performance artist Kim Ngoc at the helm, a future festival will certainly attract accomplished foreign artists who will complement the brilliance of those here this year. A New Music Festival in a Vietnamese venue could become a smash hit on the International scene.

It is a brave initiative by the funding bodies such as the Goethe Institute, Unesco, the embassies of Sweden and Denmark and the British Council wholeheartedly sponsor such experimental art forms when they could be beaming happily behind the safe and acclaimed.

And , again, it was all for free!