bc magazine

ISCM-Musicarama 2015: 31 May – 3 June 2015

Contemporary music’s annual International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World Music Days Festival will be held in Hong Kong this year from 31 May to 3 June 2015 and features four concerts and a one-day Composers’ Forum to share the composers’ musical ideas with local audiences.

Presented by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild, the ISCM-Musicarama 2015’s four concert programmes showcase the world’s contemporary composers and feature 28 compositions including five pieces written by local composers.

The first concert will feature Global Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Mak Ka-lok. In 2011, Maestro Mak returned to Hong Kong with an aim to build an orchestra of the best local musicians, hence the Global Symphony Orchestra. His vision is to nurture and support local young talented musicians with a mission of popularizing classical music in Hong Kong. The programme includes The Green Vision by Indra Riše (Latvia), two works by Belgium composers, Lettre Soufie: L(àm) by Jean-Luc Fafchamps and Monolithe by Jean-Marie Rens, Critical Mass by Tomasz Skweres (Austria), Nachtsicht II by Peter Gahn (Germany) and Dai Pai Dong by local composer Cheung Pui-shan.

The second concert will be performed by the Taipei Chamber Singers (TCS), a vocal ensemble dedicated to modern choral music. Founded in 1992, TCS has become one of the top vocal groups in Asia performing at several music festivals. Chen Yun-hung will conduct the concert. The concert programme on June 2 will feature nine works, including Two Years Later by Alex Taylor (New Zealand), Sujechon by Lee Il-joo (Korea), Strange was the World by Victor Chan (Hong Kong), The Somnambulistic Girl by Pan Hwang-long (Taiwan), two works by Swedish composers We Know Not Where The Dragons Fly by Mattias Sköld and Urworte. Orphisch by Anders Nilsson; Für Viele by Kurt Bikkembergs (Belgium) and two pieces by composers from Latvia Sonnet Nr. 28 by Oskars Herlins and Light Seeking Light by Gundega Šmite.

The Festival includes a concert of mixed ensemble music for Chinese and Western instruments,with the aim of presenting contemporary music that goes beyond the cultural boundary. Performed by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO) Ensemble and the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, this third concert will be conducted by the Resident Conductor of HKCO, Chew Hee-chiat and feature six works by composers worldwide. Programme: Four Gentlemen by local composer Lam Lan-chee, Zusammenflusses by Lee Chihchun Chi-sun (Taiwan), Wu by Klaus Hinrich Stahmer (Germany), two works by Austrian composers Seized by Wolfgang Liebhart and NUR ICH by Wang Ying, and In the Year of the Dragon by Marcel Wengler (Luxembourg).

The last concert will be performed by Japan’s Ensemble Kochi conducted by veteran composer and conductor Isao Matshushita. Works to be presented at this concert include O poveste by Alin Gherman (Belgium), Dry Tears by Yau May-kay (Hong Kong), Reverberation by Stephen Yip (Hong Kong/USA), Gealach Chríoch Lochlann by Ryan Molloy, Intim by Santa Bušs (Latvia), Persephone by Chris Adams (New Zealand) and Summer Echoes from the Valley by Janet Chen Jie-ru (Taiwan).

Admission to the Composers’ Forum on June 1 at the Central Library Lecture Hall is free of charge on a first-come-first-served basis. Audience will hear the visiting overseas composers introducing their compositions one by one in paper presentation format. Tickets for the rest of the concerts range from $100 to $180 and are available at URTBIX outlets. The four concerts take place on May 31 at City Hall Concert Hall, and June 1 to 3 at City Hall Theatre. Tickets from URBTIX.

Source: Hong Kong Composers’ Guild : bc magazine

Royz Oneman Tour “Beginners” in Asia @ MusicZone@E-Max – 7pm, 24 April, 2015

Loved by their fans ROYZ are a pillar of the new generation of Visual Kei – a movement among Japanese musicians, that is characterized by the use of varying levels of make-up, elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes, often, but not always, coupled with androgynous aesthetics.

Royz’s concerts feature dynamic stage effects accompanying a fierce rhythm and an impressive mix of melody and voice… ROYZ believe “Music has no boundaries” and tour Asia every year, hoping to be appreciated and loved by more people.

Royz OnemanTour “Beginners” in Asia
When: 7pm, 24 April, 2015
Where: Music Zone@E-Max
Tickets: $500, $400

Backstreet Boys – In A World Like This Tour Live – 22-24 April, 2015

A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell collectively are known as The Backstreet Boys. The group, formed in 1993, rose to fame with their debut album Backstreet Boys (1996) and second album Backstreet’s Back (1997). They rose to superstardom and the best selling boy-band in history with their third studio album Millennium (1999) and its follow-up album, Black & Blue (2000).

The band are in Hong Kong for two gigs at Star Hall before heading to Macau for a third at the Venetian’s Cotai Arena

Backstreet Boys – In A World Like This Tour Live
When: 8pm, 22-23 April 2015 (Friday)
Where: Star Hall
Tickets: $988, $888 from HK Ticketing

Backstreet Boys – In A World Like This Tour Live In Macao
When: 8:30pm, 24 April 2015 (Friday)
Where: CotaiArena, The Venetian Macao
Tickets: MOP788 (standing), MOP988, 788, 688, 588 (seated)
More info: tickets on sale 9 April 10:00am from Cotai Ticketing

Rhye @ Music Zone@E-Max – 8pm, 31 March, 2015

Rhye’s deeply intimate and romantic music emerged shrouded in mystery with the band’s first two singles Open and The Fall released online in 2013 with little fanfare. but to great acclaim. The duo are Canadian singer Michael Milosh and Danish instrumentalist Robin Hannibal and their first album, 2013’s Woman, is a sensual masterpiece.

Rhye
When: 8pm, 31 March, 2015
Where: Music Zone@E-Max KITEC
How much: $320 from Ticketflap
More info: www.rhyemusic.com

An Acoustic Evening with Jason Mraz and Raining Jane @ AsiaWorld Arena – 8pm, 27 March, 2015

American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz has sold over 7 million albums worldwide since the release of his 2002 debut studio album Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single The Remedy (I Won’t Worry). Commercial success, three more studio albums Mr. A-Z, (2005), We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things (2008), Love Is a Four Letter Word, (2010), multiple hit singles and two Grammy Awards have followed. In 2014 Mraz released his first acoustic album (and fifth studio album) Yes. Recorded and written with Raining Jane – the pair are undertaking a global tour to support its release and arrive in Hong Kong on the 27 March.

An Acoustic Evening with Jason Mraz and Raining Jane – Live In Hong Kong
When: 8pm, 27 March, 2015
Where: AsiaWorld-Expo, Arena
How much: $888, $688, $488, $388 from HKTicketing
More info:

SXSW 2015 – 8.42gb of Free Music

11 years. 11,000 songs. 55GB – The ultimate SXSW Music archive.

The SXSW (South by Southwest) music festival is one of the largest and most popular around. For more than a decade, the festival has been sharing DRM-free songs of its performing artists, 55 GB worth so far. This year’s release is the largest thus far featuring 1,291 tracks totaling more than eight gigabytes.

Since 2005 the SXSW music festival has published thousands of DRM-free tracks from participating artists – the first torrents were created by the festival organizers for the artist showcases themselves, but since 2008 this task has been in the hands of the public.

In 2014 SXSW replaced the MP3 files with Soundcloud links, which complicated the download process. Thankfully in 2015 all the regular SXSW showcase MP3s are again freely available on the festival site for you to sample the music of the bands that played at this year’s festival.

“These torrents include tracks that can be previewed on the SXSW website for SXSW 2015. This year’s includes 1,291 files totaling 8.42GB, making it the largest to date,” notes Ben Stolt the man who, as in previous years, has taken the time and effort to upload all of the MP3s onto BitTorrent with proper ID3 tags. “The torrents are provided as an alternate means to sample the songs available on the official SXSW site” continues Stolt. The 2015 release is out now and comes in two torrents containing a massive 1,291 tracks. That’s 8.42 gigabytes of free music in total.

All the tracks released for the previous eleven festivals dating back to 2005 are also still available for those people who want to fill up their MP3 players without having to invest thousands of dollars. The 2005 – 2015 archives now total more than 55 gigabytes.

Every year SXSW torrents are a great success, with many thousands of music aficionados downloading gigabytes of free music across virtually every genre from both established acts and upcoming bands.

This year’s SXSW music festival has finished but the music will live on for as long as there are people sharing.

www.sxswtorrent.com/2015
http://www.sxswtorrent.com/

Émilie Simon @ Grappa’s Cellar – 8pm, 26 March, 2015

With her unique mix of electronic, pop, and Bjork-like vocals, Émilie Simon has performed at sold-out shows across the world. Now, following on from her sold out show in Hong Kong in 2010, Emilie Simon is back this March.

Surrounded by music from an early age, Émilie Simon won critical plaudits as early as 2003, when she recorded a debut album largely written, composed and produced by herself. The self-titled record, Émilie Simon, won Album of the Year at Victoires de la Musique, France’s most prestigious music award ceremony.

Born in Montpellier in Southern France, Émilie grew up bathed in the Mediterranean sun and immersed in the sound of clarinets and electronic melodies. Wishing to imbue her second album with a more wintry and polar vibe, she began to record sounds that related to coldness.

Coincidentally, in the midst of her search for sounds for the album, she was contacted by film producer Luc Jacquet to compose the original soundtrack for his Oscar award-winning documentary film La Marche de l’empereur (March of the Penguins), concerning the annual migration of emperor penguins.

In 2009, Émilie started writing songs arranged for accompaniment on piano, rather than a computer. “I even forbade myself to go near a computer for a year and a half,” Emilie said, “I wanted to see what I was capable of without my usual comforts around me.” The result was a collection of sounds reflecting Émilie’s impression of New York City — an urban, black and white musical that became her most recent album, The Big Machine. On this album, Émilie’s experimental inclination involved the clever use of traditional Chinese instruments – together with keyboards – as a vestige of her long stay in the heart of Chinatown.

In 2011, the album Franky Night, (dedicated to her late fiancé) won her many more fans in France as most of the tracks were sung in French, as opposed to English. Her latest album, Mue, hit markets in 2014 and includes tracks like Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games” cover, and other heartfelt songs featuring both English and French lyrics.

Émilie Simon
When:– 8pm, 26 March, 2015
Where: Grappa’s Cellar
Tickets: $420 (inc one drink) from Ticketflap
More info: www.emiliesimon.com

One Direction “On the Road Again Tour 2015” @ AsiaWorld Expo – 18 March, 2015

One Direction are Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan. The band came together at the boot camp stage of The X Factor 2010 and made it all the way to the final before finishing 3^rd. For the last five years the band the been a marketing dream selling millions of banal bland records across the world and making their management company extremely rich. To call the show a concert when the ‘band’ only lip-syncs along to their studio produced tracks should amount to false advertising.

One Direction On the Road AgainTour 2015
When: 8pm, 18 March, 2015
Where: AsiaWorld Expo
Tickets: $3488, $2288, $1888, $1488, $988
More info: buy the DVD it’s alot cheaper