Although this year's Taipei International Percussion Summer Camp (TIPSC, 台北國際打擊樂夏令研習營) will be coming to a close tomorrow, the camps' hugely popular concert, which sees the internationally renowned percussionists invited to lecture at the event performing together on one stage, will take place this coming Monday at Taipei's National Concert Hall.
Organized by the Ju Percussion Group Foundation, the TIPSC has been attracting large numbers of youngsters eager to learn and understand percussion since its founding in 1999. According to a spokesperson for Ju Percussion, this year's camp is the largest to date with 250 students aged between 12 and 20 taking part in the nine-day tutorial.
Helping the scores of young Taiwanese would-be Cozy Powells who enroll in the camp over the years have been some the world's greatest percussionists, all of whom have come to Taiwan in order to teach and help increase the popularity of percussive arts throughout the country.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JU PERCUSSION GROUP FOUNDATION
Past masters who have led classes include Emil Richards, a vibraphonist who performed with the likes of Charles Mingus and Frank Zappa, Michael Burritt, associate professor and director of percussion studies at Northwestern University and Japanese world music celebrity, Tomoyuki Okada.
This year saw organizers focusing on the areas of ensemble music, marimba, drum set, Latin drum and Japanese Taiko. And in keeping with previous years, organizers invited a selection of some of the world's leading percussionists to lecturer at the camp.
This year's classes were led by composer and marimba specialist, Gordon Stout, internationally recognized session drummer and educator Steve Houghton, pre-eminent authority on Latin and Brazilian rhythm percussion, Chalo Eduardo and Keiko Nakamura, a timpani player who has held master classes in both her native Japan and Europe. The four stars will be joined on stage on Monday by members of both the Ju Percussion Group and its junior ensemble.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JU PERCUSSION GROUP FOUNDATION
Houghton and the popular Ju Group will be performing a set of offbeat and unpredictable percussion numbers, while Eduardo and Nakamura will be performing sets that include marimba and classical tunes accompanied by the group's junior ensemble. Top honors this year go to Stout, however, who will be performing the evening's only solo routine, which will see the walls of the National Concert Hall reverberating to the artists' highly charged brand of vibraphone and marimba.
The 2002 Taipei International Percussion Summer Camp Concert (2002台北國際打擊樂夏令研習營示範音樂會) will take place at Taipei's National Concert Hall (國家音樂廳) on Monday, Aug. 5 at 7:30pm. Tickets for the event cost between NT$300 and NT$1,000 and are available from Acer ticketing outlets nationwide or direct from the venue. -- Gavin Phipps
If you are a Western and especially a white foreign resident of Taiwan, you’ve undoubtedly had the experience of Taiwanese assuming you to be an English teacher. There are cultural and economic reasons for this, but one of the greatest determinants is the narrow range of work permit categories that exist for Taiwan’s foreign residents, which has in turn created an unofficial caste system for foreigners. Until recently, laowai (老外) — the Mandarin term for “foreigners,” which also implies citizenship in a rich, Western country and distinguishable from brown-skinned, southeast Asian migrant laborers, or wailao (外勞) — could only ever
Sept. 23 to Sept. 29 The construction of the Babao Irrigation Canal (八堡圳) was not going well. Large-scale irrigation structures were almost unheard of in Taiwan in 1709, but Shih Shih-pang (施世榜) was determined to divert water from the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) to the Changhua plain, where he owned land, to promote wet rice cultivation. According to legend, a mysterious old man only known as Mr. Lin (林先生) appeared and taught Shih how to use woven conical baskets filled with rocks called shigou (石笱) to control water diversion, as well as other techniques such as surveying terrain by observing shadows during
In recent weeks news outlets have been reporting on rising rents. Last year they hit a 27 year high. It seems only a matter of time before they become a serious political issue. Fortunately, there is a whole political party that is laser focused on this issue, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP). They could have had a seat or two in the legislature, or at least, be large enough to attract media attention to the rent issue from time to time. Unfortunately, in the last election, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) acted as a vote sink for
This is a film about two “fools,” according to the official synopsis. But admirable ones. In his late thirties, A-jen quits his high-paying tech job and buys a plot of land in the countryside, hoping to use municipal trash to revitalize the soil that has been contaminated by decades of pesticide and chemical fertilizer use. Brother An-ho, in his 60s, on the other hand, began using organic methods to revive the dead soil on his land 30 years ago despite the ridicule of his peers, methodically picking each pest off his produce by hand without killing them out of respect