30/08/2022 20:00 – 23:00
Click here to access live radio player

Welcome back to Radio Tenthaus. How are you today? 

It’s getting colder now, isn’t it. The temporary is dropping, but it seems like people are not ready for autumn to come. So there is a bit of conflict or tension kind of energy in the air. It’s not necessarally comfortable to live with, but I guess that’s just who every transition is. Let’s hope that music and art can help us to get through this. So we can all enjoy a nice cozy winter. Well, Radio Tenthaus will be here every Tuesday with you.

And when the next summer comes, it will be the bienelle Momentum 12 which Tenthaus curates. It will exhibited from the 10th of June to the 08 of october.

So, the 30th of august, not the 31th of august. hehe. This is Radio Tenthaus episode 115. We will start with the second episode of our new radio series “Walk With Wei”. Today, we are going to travel to Hong Kong. Later on tonight, we will listen to the album “Portraits and Planets” Chamber music by Erik Dæhlin. 

Before we start the program, I would like to keep you updated about Tenthaus program. Tenthaus is currently having a pop-up exhibition “Batcave” presented by Stan D’Haene. Batvave is an immersive installation found in the underground level of Tethaus’ project space in Christian Krohgs Gate 34.

The exhibition is on view in the weekends until the 4th of september, which is this Sunday. You can find more information on tenthaus facebook, instagram or website tenthaus.no

—

Hello, this is the second episode of the radio series Walk With Wei. My name is Wei. 

Walk with Wei is a radio series where musician and composer Wei Ting Zeng introduces classical music and sound art around the world. Last week we had a sound trip to Ukraine to celebrate the Ukrainian Flag, also the National day of Ukraine. 

Today, with all the my respect, I would like to bring you to Hong Kong. 

Hong kong was formally passed over from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China at midnight on 1 July 1997. And this event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special administrative region of China (SAR) for 50 years, maintaining its own economic and governing systems from those of mainland China during this time. Which means that Hong Kong still remains partially free for another 25 years, before it is formally part of China’s territory. But the influence from the central government in Beijing increased after the passing of the Hong Kong national security law in 2020. That’s when we saw news that Hong Kongese were on the street and protesting.

The interesting part of today’s episode is the generation gap and understanding of it’s culture differentiate from the older generation and the younger. And you will be able to tell the difference through their music.

The first composer of today is Doming Lam who was born in 1926, he remains alive and just celebrated his 96 year’s old birthday. He was named as “the father of Hong Kong modern music”, oh… that’s a heavy title to carry…

Before 2000, i would say. The music culture was more developed in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It’s easy to tell if you turn of chinese talent show, most of the judges are from HK or TW. And so does classical music industry. Doming Lam was one of the person fighting for protecting asian composers right, so her found Asian Composer’s League (ACL) and the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) were in 1983.

He has this idea of bring asian music root to the globe, so started exchange programs with schools, foundations, music competitions and so on. And in a way, he managed to push Chinese classical music forward. 

Today, we are going to listen to his piano piece, called Moonlight Over Spring River 春江花月夜. 

The original piece of “Spring River, Flowers and Moonlight Night” was first a  pipa score in the early 19th century. 

You will hear the main melody from it’s originally piece, and lots of timbres, which is like several notes playing very fast, sounds like ti ring ti ting. And it’s imitating the wheel finger of traditional chinese instrument Pipa. 

You can also hear the elements of arpeggios, means notes from chords spread out, s it sounds like …….. And these sounds are meant to imitating the Zheng, it’s like 快速音下行，when you slide the Zheng strings downwards or upwards with a pick or nails. 

–

The next piece we are going to listen to, is Loming Lam’s most known piece, called “Insect World”. It’s composed for Chinese orchestra, and like the name described, we will hear how he describe the world insect lives in, and sounds from the insects.

There are five movements of this piece. The first movement: The Busy Bee, The second movement: The drgonflies. The third: Second worm. The fourth: Butterflies, and the final movements: Insect World.

You can definitely hear how Loming Lam approach music, the intension and how Hong Kong when it was colonized by the United Kingdom. How he uses composition skills which are coming from the west, at the same time, believing in the chinese music style, and embrace that as his identity. 

It’s quite interesting, let’s hear it.