Hanoi city blues

Performance Đàn Bầu, electronics, Haikus on December

Venue: Univ. of Bonn, main building, lecture hall 2

The pieces are personal as well as at the pulse of time. Haikus written in English delve into the astonishingly sensual sounds of Đàn bầu, the Vietnamese monochord zither, combined with electronics – and vice versa.
With her sensitivity for vibratos, non-Western scales and explorative improvisations, Tam Thi Pham embarks on a journey of musical maneuvers and interactions, as if in a question-and-answer game with images put in words by Phuong Le Trong. The performance distinctively leads to reflections on current issues and experiences in Vietnam and other environments.

Tam Thi Pham, based in Hamburg, is a composer and improvisation artist hailing from Vietnam. Expressions in which composition and performance are two indivisible parts testify to her flair for creative experimenting, especially with Vietnamese music. Phuong Le Trong is a sociologist with a focus on Southeast Asia as well as an author. His essays and poems are records from the perspective of a flâneur.