1988: Fusing the sound of Vietnamese folk music and contemporary jazz

March 28, 2022March 29, 2022

Australian Art Orchestra and The Substation present

1988

The fall of Saigon in 1975 triggered a mass exodus of South Vietnamese from their homeland by sea. It is estimated that anywhere between one to two million people would eventually flee the country, of this it is estimated that half perished at sea. One of the lucky ones was Quí Văn Nguyễn.

***Dung Nguyen in foreground, Helen Svoboda in background.***

1988 was a pivotal year for Dung Nguyen as he emigrated from South Vietnam to Australia, to join Quí Văn Nguyễn, his father.

1988 is the point of arrival and the point of departure, the end of one journey and the start of another; yet it is one story, Dung’s story told in fragments. 1988 is misaligned, disjointed and cyclical, it borrows from the memories of the Vietnamese people, but is corrupted by a sense of nostalgia. It intertwines personal narratives, diverse music practices, history, and cultural legacies, in seeking to understand how and why we come to occupy the spaces we find ourselves in.

Consisting of 9 compositions that bleed into one another, the individual musical practices of the players in the ensemble come together to collectively tell this story with Dung. It is a moment of togetherness that is owed to the richness of his experiences and that of the Vietnamese people. Accompanied by a dynamic and experimental visual design using vintage slide projectors to present personal and archival images, 1988s compositions interweave with the whir and click of the technology, creating a unique musical texture that reflects and highlights the stories being told.

1988 is composed by Dung Nguyen and Peter Knight for the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) with visual design by Phuong Ngo. It proposes a rich context for the cultural and musical practices highlighted in the work, their place in contemporary Australian culture, and their relationship to the Vietnamese diaspora experience.

Australian Art Orchestra was founded by Paul Grabowsky in 1994 and is Australia’s leading contemporary music ensemble. Now led by daring composer/trumpeter/sound artist Peter Knight its work constantly seeks to stretch genres and break down the barriers separating disciplines, forms and cultures.

Performance Dates: Friday, 1 April & Saturday, 2 April

Time: 8PM

Venue: The Substation, 1 Market St Newport VIC 3015

Tickets: $30 full. $20 concession

Book Tickets: https://thesubstation.org.au/program/1988