The Taipei International Percussion Convention, a triennial event now being staged for the fourth time, will be presenting its most impressive line-up of groups of an unprecedented musical scope when it kicks off tomorrow.
The Percussive Music Cultural Foundation, organizer of the 12-day, 21-show event, prides itself on the fact that it has managed to invite four of the world's leading percussion groups -- Canada's Nexus, France's Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Sweden's Kroumata and Hungary's Amadinda. Although none of the four will be here for the first time, percussion aficionados must be quite excited with this rare chance to see them take part in the same event.
Another feature of this year's convention is the first-time inclusion of jazz concerts in its program. Although the careers of Ju Tzong-ching, artistic director for the event, and his Ju Percussion Group have been defined by their efforts to make classical music more accessible to the general audience with classical interpretations of folk songs, pop and children's tunes, jazz is a genre they haven't taken on so far.
GRAPHIC COURTESY OF PMCF
Performing in the jazz concerts will be Emil Richards and the Steve Houghton Quartet. Houghton, co-chairman of the US-based International Association of Jazz Educators, has taught jazz drumming in Ju's percussion camps for elementary and junior high-school students. Starting off with the Woody Herman Band more than two decades ago, the versatile musician has performed and recorded with renowned artists, including Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and Toshiko Akiyoshi while publishing more than 20 works on music education.
Instead of presenting "The Beauty of Taiwanese Percussion Music" section to promote traditional music styles of nanguan and beiguan, as on previous occasions, this year's festival will showcase "Percussion Music Across Asia." Intended to introduce traditional Asian music to the Taiwanese audiences, the show will have groups from South Korea, Indonesia, Iran and the Philippines perform with the local Han Tang Yuefu band and the Hong Sheng Lion Dance Group.
Now an established event with entries from 12 countries, the convention invited groups from only four countries the first year. However, there has not been a lack of setbacks and struggles either now or in the past.
Reminiscing on how he prepared the first festival in 1992, Ju was quoted as saying that the biggest difficulty he faced was finding funding. When he received the shocking news that the event wasn't to receive the subsidies the Council for Cultural Affairs had promised, he was in deep trouble. However, he decided to proceed with the event as scheduled, shouldering the fundraising himself. Desperate, he drove down to southern Taiwan during the Chinese New Year Holiday and managed to persuade an architect friend to sponsor the project with NT$1 million and personally borrowed NT$2 million more. The local press described Ju as "begging for alms from door to door" at that time. The success of the first festival and feedback from the audience encouraged Ju to organize the next installments.
Faced with a dismal recession this year, Ju insisted on organizing the fourth convention because, "it's being responsible for one's own ideals," Ju was quoted as saying at the press conference announcing the event.
Although funding was still hard to come by this year, one improvement was that foreign groups had grown to see the event not as a commercial opportunity but an artistic exchange. Unlike the first event, when the organizer had to pay the foreign groups for their performance, all the groups asked for only lodging this year.
For that, they are required to be the audience of other participants' shows. Also, all the groups will perform at least one number composed by Taiwanese composers this year, which are all previously unreleased works.
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