Latest Programs
Saturday 23 August 2008
Listen Now - 23082008 |
This music feature explores the cultural milieu of the silk string Qin, a 3000 year old, seven-stringed, fretless Chinese zither. Silk on Wood focuses on a small group of musician-scholars living in Hong Kong, dedicated to maintaining the silk string Qin tradition. Listeners are afforded the rare privilege of entering the very private world of the only surviving Silk String Qin society, to witness the dedication and resilience of this reclusive community in the face of the behemoth that is New China.
Throughout its long history, the Qin has been the musical instrument most prized by China's literati or educated class. The upheavals in China from 1949 onwards saw the decline of this literati class and, with it, the culture of silk string Qin. No other instrument has been described and illustrated in such detail, so often depicted in paintings or so regularly mentioned in poetry. It lays claim to the world's oldest detailed instrumental music notation.
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Saturday 16 August 2008
Listen Now - 16082008 |
This fascinating feature, recorded in China, tells of a heart-warming recording project to preserve the rare and beautiful traditional songs of Tibet, which are vanishing in the process of modernisation. Milking songs and songs for building traditional houses are fading from collective memory, but Tibetan students at Qinhai Normal University, in Xining in China's west, are seeking out those in their home villages and towns who remember and sing the songs by heart.
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Saturday 09 August 2008
Listen Now - 09082008 |
In tune with the Beijing Olympics, we explore the work of one of China's most successful artistic exports, composer Tan Dun. Join Tan Dun and Australian percussionist Rebecca Lagos in a spirited excursion through his music, which blends Western classical traditions with ethnic Chinese folk music to create new music for this millennium.
Tan Dun, a native of Hunan province, is renowned for his theatrical musical projects drawing on Chinese sources. He speaks of his music for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, his organic music for water, paper and stone, and his quest to preserve the disappearing music of his childhood in new technological forms for the future. Percussionist Rebecca Lagos sheds light on the unusual paper, water and stone instruments she played in the four concertos performed by the Sydney Symphony under the baton of their composer Tan Dun in 2003 and 2006. In this program, first broadcast on Into the Music in 2006, we hear excerpts from those performances.
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Saturday 02 August 2008
Listen Now - 02082008 |
Malian musician Toumani Diabate performed with his Symmetric Orchestra at the 2008 WOMADelaide Festival and at the Sydney Opera House in a dazzling synthesis of traditional instruments, such as the balafon, kora, ngoni and djembe, with western electric guitars, drum kit and keyboards. Toumani Diabate is a virtuoso of the kora or West African calabash harp-lute, and is renowned for both his solo recordings and collaborations with musicians such as Ali Farka Toure, Taj Mahal, Ketama, and Bjork.
Saturday 26 July 2008
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Acclaimed neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks discusses the particular importance of music in the human brain; from its intricate connection to a wide range of neurological disorders to its unique function of providing pathways to order and memory. In a forum at Montreal's McGill University, he tells stories from his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain and offers surprising and fascinating insights into music and its place in our neurological systems.
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