Location: 3rd Floor, Block A, 9 Tran Thanh Tong, Hanoi
Since 2006, The Six Tones has been bringing art music from Vietnam and Europe together, touring as an instrumental music group or in music theatre projects, and working with choreographers. We play traditional Vietnamese music in hybrid settings for Western stringed instruments and traditional Vietnamese instruments. We improvise in traditional and experimental Western idioms and also commission new music by composers in Asia as well as in Western countries. The Six Tones are Nguyễn Thanh Thủy and Ngô Trà My and the Swedish guitarist Stefan Östersjö (also playing many other stringed instruments). Since the project started, we have been collaborating with the composer and improviser Henrik Frisk, who has both composed works for the ensemble as well as toured with the group as a lap top improviser. The name of the group, emanating from a composition by Henrik, relates to the fact that the Vietnamese language is a tonal language using six tones or intonations. Building on a concept of mutual learning, musical traditions from Viet Nam and Europe are brought together into music that aims to reach beyond a mere collage-like superimposition of elements and strive for a more complex and experimentally oriented sound.
The four guests on the CD are Lê Phổ, a leading proponent of traditional flute music in Vietnam, and currently the head of the department for traditional music at the Vietnam national Academy of Music and three key figures from the experimental music scene: Trí Minh, Vũ Nhật Tân and Trần Thị Kim Ngọc.
