PrettyInScarlett

Am impromptu decision on a rainy week night resulting in a really interesting evening. The MUSICON series promoted by Durham University Music Department runs an (annual?) festival of East Asian Music, with this year's three events focusing on the music of China, Korea and Japan respectively. I have attended a few concerts of Chinese/Taiwanese origin music and have always enjoyed them; however I don't recall having attended any Korean musical events. This evening's musical journey , held in the Oriental Museum , predominantly featured new compositions by composer Yoon Hyelin - including 2 world premieres! The assembled musicians work towards the concept of 'haal', described in the programme as the 'exclamation made at the moment of realisation or awakening among Buddhist monks'. Throughout the programme the basis of most pieces was an idea of transcending the everyday and moving towards a state of relaxed consciousness. Mixing between vocal and ins...

Spring is coming and with it the choice of concerts seems to expand! Prompted by the ever-useful Music in Durham website, for the first time I attended a Durham University Music Society  concert and my first experience of a piano duo (2 people, 2 pianos rather than a duet which is 1 piano). Quite a reasonable gathering for a Monday evening in the Concert Room in the Music Department on Palace Green.   The Parnassus Piano Duo , Simon Callaghan and Hiro Takenouchi, make an understated but excellent duo, who treated the audience to a programme of the following:    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91): Larghetto & Allegro in E flat [1781]  Percy Sherwood (1866-1939): Sonata for Two Pianos in C minor [1890 rev. 96]  Aaron Copland (1900-1990): El Salón México (arr. Leonard Bernstein) [1932-6]  Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943): Suite No.2 Op.17   Closing my eyes during the Mozart, I could almost imagine an evening soiree in a Viennes...