Piano – Tuồng “Fire” by Pho An My and Dang Tue Nguyen

Sat 29 Nov 2014, 8 pm
Hanoi Opera House

From the organizer:

“Fire” is a project conceived 8 years ago by two artists Pho An My and Dang Tue Nguyen. Sharing the desire of creating a new theatre language as combination between piano and Tuồng, My and musician Dang Tue Nguyen has collaborated to generate “Fire” based on Tuồng script by poet Luong Tu Duc.

The beauty and philosophical depth of Tuồng (traditional opera) has once again given pianist Phó An My and composer Đặng Tuệ Nguyên inspiration for a new and unique creative collaboration: a ”post-contemporary” work of chamber music written for the piano using the musical language and the dramaturgical materials of Tuồng, in which a modern instrument, the piano, and an ancient art, Tuồng, exist in parallel and independently, but at the same time complement and interact with each other.

The storyline of the opera is based on the script of “Ngọn lửa Hồng Sơn” (“Fire of the Red Mountain”). “Ngọn lửa Hồng Sơn” (“Fire of the Red Mountain”) is composed around the 17th century. It is based on the ancient opera “Tam nữ đồ Vương” (“Three women planning to steal the throne”) and reflects a turbulent historical period. Unlike other traditional operas, which recount struggles against foreign enemies, “Ngọn lửa Hồng Sơn” deals with a domestic conflict between two political forces, one progressive, the other conservative. The speed and intensity of its plot as well as the complexity and variety of its characters contribute to the status of “Ngọn lửa Hồng Sơn” as a shining achievment of Hue opera in particular and of Vietnamese opera in general, to be preserved as a timeless classic in Vietnam’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Tickets

Ticket prices: 500.000, 800.000, 1.000.000 VND

Buy online tickets here:

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About pianist Phó An My

After her first public appearance in 2005 at L’Espace – Institut Françai de Hanoi, pianist Phó An My has repeatedly impressed domestic and international audiences. Born into a musical family, My began learning the piano at age five. At 13, she went to Berlin, Germany, to study at the Musikgymnasium Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and later at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. She remained in Germany for eight years. After her study, My taught in China for a brief period of time.

Specializing in contemporary music, My tends toward a style which is both expressive and sophisticated, employing an unique improvisation technique. In 2005, My began to work on the idea of a musical discourse between Vietnamese traditional melody and Western modern instrumentation. Programs such as Phiêu Thanh (2008), Bồng Bềnh (2009), Khởi Nguyên (2010), Bóng (2011) all involved the use of Vietnamese traditional musical genres – Tuồng Tích, Hò Huế, Hát Cọi, Chầu Văn etc – which is characteristic of Phó An My’s musical personality.

About Đặng Tuệ Nguyên

Đặng Tuệ Nguyên started his professional career with Khúc Tuỳ Hứng (“Impromtu”) written for violincello and piano, which was chosen as one of ten works to be performed at the Young Composers’ Festival for Contemporary Music in Korea. Since 2005, Nguyên has been seeking to create a new musical language based on Vietnamese folk music. Nguyên’s works are often conceived as a conversation between the sound of the modern piano and the melodies of traditional Vietnamese music. Nguyên always tries to respect the old and to treat it on an equal footing with the new. His compositions are highly regarded by professional musicians for their sophisticated instrumentation as well as their clever mixture of Eastern and Western ideas. To create a musical conversation between East and West has been the objective of both Phó An My and Đặng Tuệ Nguyên, and this objective is obtained with particular success in the Piano-Tuồng, named Lửa (“Fire”).

Watch a video of Pho An My’s “Reflection” show at Hanoi Opera House in 2011: