HCMC – “Reflection” Cultural Dialogue Piano – Hau Van

Wed 31 Aug 2011, 8 pm
HCMC Opera House

From the organizer:

You are invited to a special piano performance with Pho An My titled “Reflection” Cultural Dialogue Piano: Hau Van by artist Dang Tue Nguyen in HCMC. The event is also performed at the Hanoi Opera House on 22 Aug.

Hát Văn has inspired pianist Pho An My and composer Dang Tue Nguyen to venture onto a new idea of musical play. This is the 2011 premiere of their co-production. Dang Tue Nguyen does not write his new work based on the Hát Văn music. Ancient poems provide him with inspiration to create characters who become alive with piano music. The piano and Hát Văn go hand in hand as two independent entities, crossing and exchanging and enriching each other. Pho An My plays the role of medium for the Holy Spirits to manifest themselves.

Program
NGHINH THAN / OUVERTURE
Variation 1 Mother of Heaven
Variation 2 Prince Bảy
Variation 3 Litte Bơ
Variation 4 Little Master

With “Bong” (Spirit medium) with four selected music styles for a typical séance, and music composed by Dang Tue Nguyen, surely Pho An My’s piano playing reach a new height. “I studied a lot about traditional faith in seance. I learnt that Ong Hoang Bay is a charming man, escorted by twelve fairies, while Co Bo is beautiful by melancholy madam, while Cau (hilly Boy) is so childish. My piano playing changes, and also turns into those characters”.

Although a piano audience is selective, when it is played for a séance, and the pianist becomes a string connecting the world and the afterworld, the piano becomes more familiar. They can feel the splash when Co Bo falls into the water, the naïve laughter of Cau, who suddenly falls asleep while playing, the audience can also feel the tenderness of fairies during “ong Hoang Bay” session… “Receiving the music piece rewritten from chau van by Dang Tue Nguyen, I find it stunning. Getting myself into “Bong” deeply, when I was practicing, I suddenly felt that a spirit walking through, I startled and had to stop playing”, Pho An My explained why she can turn herself into different characters of “Bong”.

The musical play is called Bóng (perhaps its best English equivalent of which is a Musical Séance), and consists of four variations called Nhập (when the spirits have entered the body and mind of the medium). In between the variations are items of Hát Văn performance in its pure original format.

Together with People’s Artist Thanh Hoai, artisan Dzuong Thanh… piano playing of Pho An My brings “chau van” out of simple music for folk religious faith to become elegant, academic but still close and sensible. Séance believers can still indulge themselves with piano which is originally for classic music listeners. Piano-chau van by Pho An My harmonizes both reality –virtuosity, making “Bong” listeners lost into a multi-emotion world, which is both familiar and unusual, and exciting. “Bong” promises to satisfy piano lovers, chau van lovers and those who like to enjoy music in different ways.

Tickets

Ticket price: 500 000 VND, 800 000 VND, 1000 000 VND, 1500 000 VND.
Tickets are available at:
Ticket Counter, HCMC Opera House, Tel: 08 38299976
or contact: Thu Anh 090 205 9236