I'mPULSE 2008 - “CRACKING BAMBOO” International Percussion Festival

Phase 1: September 15-22, 2008, Hanoi – Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
Phase 2: Ho chi Minh City, Vietnam (September 22-26), Jakarta, Indonesia (September 22-27, 2008) and Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Vientiane, Laos (September 22-28, 2008)

Many contemporary percussion instruments in European music have their roots in Asian cultures. Twentieth century composers have developed a wide variety of positions in terms of their understanding and handling of percussion instruments from other cultures. If they were at first used simply as ‘acoustic sound-spices’ for compositions, recently a more complex view of the function of these instruments is developing: they are a key to understanding other cultures because they are relatively simple to relate to.

In keeping to its commitment to facilitate Asian and European understanding and exchange in the field of music, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) organised its flagship music programme I’mPULSE: Asia-Europe Music Camp, an initiative designed to nurture the development of innovative methods and practices in music through the empowerment of young musicians from Asia and Europe. Initiated in 2005, I’mPULSE seeks to maintain a process-oriented platform for young musicians in Asia and Europe by encouraging and engaging them in continuous dialogue on innovative music concepts. For the fifth edition of the programme, I’mPULSE 2008 mixed music, sounds and cultures from traditional percussion instruments in Asia, with contemporary music from Europe. It was presented the very first CRACKING BAMBOO International Percussion Music Festival.

CRACKING BAMBOO is a concept aiming for a better exchange and encounter between Southeast Asian and European music. The connecting link is percussion instruments, which offer, more so than other instruments, possible reference points which permit occidental music to relate to traditional non-European music. Happening for the first time in September 2008, the project offered a platform for an encounter between percussionists with “modern” instruments from Europe and their forefathers, the traditional instruments of Southeast Asia, for a musical dialogue in mutual respect. This percussion music festival is envisioned to be held as an annual event beyond this initial collaboration with I’mPULSE.

For this year’s undertaking, I’mPULSE 2008 and CRACKING BAMBO engaged up to 40 young musicians, composers, students and musicologists from Europe and Asia in a dialogue through comprehensive music experimentation and performance with percussion as the connecting link. Musicians were given the opportunity to share their passion in creating and recreating music through the 12-days of workshops, master classes and public performances in Vietnam (Hanoi and Ha Long Bay). Its scope, however, was not limited to Vietnam but rather it provided stimulation for possible future projects and network building in neighboring countries in the region, such as Indonesia, Laos and Cambodia.

I’mPULSE 2008 and CRACKING BAMBOO were joint initiatives of ASEF, the Goethe-Institute Vietnam and the Vietnam National Academy of Music, and was supported by L’Espace Centre Culturel Français de Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music and the ULTIMA Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in Vietnam; the Goethe-Institute Jakarta in Indonesia; the Centre de Langue Française in Laos; and by Metahouse and Art+Foundation in Cambodia.

In 2009, ASEF introduced the Asia-Europe Cultural Partnership Initiative: Performing Arts, inviting collaborative proposals in contemporary music, dance and theatre from organisations in ASEM member countries. Four projects have been selected for support in Belgium, India, Indonesia and Italy in 2009-10.