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The Asia premiere of the "into Pearl River Delta" concert will be held on November 20 at the Hong Kong City Hall. Featuring new works by five renowned composers with surround sound effects and video projections, the concert creates an edgy soundscape of urban life blending contemporary music and cross-cultural ideas.
"into Pearl River Delta", one of the programmes of the New Vision Arts Festival, is jointly presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and Goethe-Institut Hongkong. It is also part of the project "into...", organised by Ensemble Modern (Germany) and Siemens Arts Program in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. For the project, 17 outstanding composers set out to conduct compositional research on the state of cultural convergence in the megacities of Istanbul, Dubai, Johannesburg, and the Pearl River Delta region, spending a month in one of these locations to compose a work reflecting on it.
To create "into Pearl River Delta", five celebrated composers: Johannes Schollhorn (Germany), Unsuk Chin (Korea), Heiner Goebbels (Germany), David Fennessy (UK) and Benedict Mason (UK), arrived in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macao and Hong Kong in 2008-09 with the goal of transforming their encounters with the region into music. The compositions that resulted mirror the cultural diversity of the Pearl River Delta cities, transferring drivers' radio conversations and street theatre into poetic, geographically specific music.
One of the leading figures in the contemporary music and theatre scene, Heiner Goebbels has created the electronic composition "out of", translating the intense acoustics of Hong Kong into music. While in Hong Kong, Benedict Mason made a film to synchronise with live music as a thought-provoking multi-layered commentary. Unsuk Chin, winner of a prestigious Grawemeyer Award and the Arnold Schönberg Prize, takes a special angle in "Gougalon-Scenes from a street Theatre" by using percussion to evoke sounds reminiscent of an old marketplace. Johannes Schollhorn, twice awarded the Premio V. Bucchi, toys with a variety of orchestral colours in "No Man's Land" while David Fennessy, a top prize-winner in the New Music for Sligo Composers' Competition, discovers the individual in sites of mass production in "13 Factories". The five pieces try to get a glimpse of the new century in one of its most vibrant places - the Pearl River Delta - producing a contemporary music event not to be missed.
The concert is performed by Ensemble Modern under the baton of Johannes Kalitzke, with Norbert Ommer as sound director and Felix Dreher in charge of live electronics. The show is praised by The Daily Mirror, Berlin as "vividly and engagingly performed... the compositions mirrored the cultural diversity of the industrialised conglomerate, including Hong Kong and Macao".
Founded in 1980 in Germany, Ensemble Modern (EM) is one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles. EM currently comprises 19 soloists from eight countries in Europe, Asia and South America, all of whom add to the group's rich multicultural background. The ensemble regularly performs at leading festivals and top international venues around the world, including Salzburger Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Musikfest Berlin, Lincoln Center Festival, Festival d'Automne a Paris, Holland Festival and Oper Frankfurt.
"into Pearl River Delta" will be held on November 20 at 8pm at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. A meet-the-artists session will also be held after the performance. Tickets priced at $320, $240, $180 and $120 are now available at URBTIX.
Half-price tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 and above, people with disabilities and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients. Group booking and package discounts of up to 20% are available.
A pre-performance talk on the project "into...", the composers' experiences in the Pearl River Delta region and the concepts behind their compositions will be held at 7pm at the Recital Hall, 8/F, Hong Kong City Hall High Block. Speakers include Roland Diry, Managing Director of Ensemble Modern, Michael Muller-Verweyen, Director of Goethe-Institut Hongkong and Johannes Schöllhorn, composer of "No Man's Land". The talk will be conducted in English. Admission is free. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Programme brochures of the New Vision Arts Festival are available at URBTIX outlets or at the website, www.newvisionfestival.gov.hk .
For programme enquiries, call 2370 1044. Credit card telephone bookings: 2111 5999. Internet bookings can be made at www.urbtix.hk .
Ends/Saturday, November 6, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:02
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