The Soaring Dragon

Over 100 drums of varying shapes, colours and sizes filled the stage, dragons being the common theme carved into the sides. A further 50 drums clung to the edge of the upper balconies and every one in the audience had a mini hand drum. Suddenly the doors opened and in ran over 60 children, many looking no older than 5. The show had began and oh... what a show it was. The drumming was deafening, the beat reached down into your very core as the children put their body and soul into their performance, a piece entitled Flying Dragons and Jumping Tigers. We were sitting in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China with a special concert combining the old and new styles of percussion music and featuring the Eight Mallets and the Red Poppy Ladies Percussion. It was pictures of the Red Poppy Ladies that really attracted us to the concert, but more about them later. All too soon the children had finished and run off stage, what a brilliant performance. Then entered the Eight Mallets, yes you guessed it, four men who obviously can hold eight drum mallets between them. Their first piece was based on traditional Peking Opera percussion music which is not necessarily to every ones taste. It is amazing how you can get such a different unusual sound out of instruments. Their second piece was this time based on the percussion music of the Tujia ethnic minority and did a great job of describing a group of myna birds playing in the water.

Again the stage was cleared and 10 huge heavily carved red drums with gold dragons flying from the sides were rolled on the stage. Then 10 very beautiful, fit and toned young women bounced onto the stage, wearing black spandex trousers and bright red silk sleeveless chinese tops, their hair tied in ponytails to keep out of the way. And the drumming began. Ponytails whipped from side to side as they put their whole bodies into the music, no wonder they are so fit looking. This was not just about the sound of the drums, this was a whole body performance and boy did they know how to perform. The Red Poppy is the first all female professional percussion ensemble in China, based in Beijing. They are all professionally trained in percussion and armed with excellent musicianship and showmanship they certainly know how to excite the audience. Most of their music is specifically written for them and is thus a unique blend of folk and contemporary music styles which along with their youthful confidence has made them the new force in percussion music. The first piece they performed was based on music from all around Asia. The pipa and the zhudi from China set the mood in the opening passage with their Oriental touch. Then the thunderous rhythms of the Chinese dagu (large drums) broke the serenity by injecting vitality and motion before the uniform beats of the Japanese daiko came in, creating an air of magnificence. It was followed by the dance-like Korean samui nori of four instruments - the janggu (hourglass drum) kkwaenggwari (small gong) buk (barrel drum) and jong (medium sized gong) The exotic sound of Indian chanting and the sitar brought back the calm before various drum cadenza passages appeared, piling one on top of the other to push the music to a climatic close. In their second piece they each weilded a set of nunchuku (the joined sticks used in martial arts) which they twirled around hitting octagon shaped drums behind them placed high on stands and the large drums in front, the drumming movements choreographed to include martial arts, all the while not once hitting either themselves or each other! Click on the following link to see a sample of their work.

Red Poppy Ladies Percussion

After a crescendo of applause they left the stage for intermission and the stage was set for the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Wow it is amazing how different instruments can sound. During the tune up, if you closed your eyes you could be listening to any orchestra tune up, but once they started to play the sound was a world apart. The instruments in a traditional Chinese orchestra are completely different, yes they do have a string and wind section, but the instruments that they play look completely different. The strings ( violins, Cellos etc) have been replaced by their Chinese equivalent, what look like small cylinders with the neck and strings attached. In the smaller string instruments the bow is inserted inside the strings rather than played on the outside as with the violin. There are 5 different sections of these types of stings, looking somewhat similar except for the shape and size of the cylinder. Then there is a section of guitar/sitar shaped instruments, behind which you can see a mixture of wind instruments all very different from modern orchestras. And finally they are surrounded by the percussion section which did also include timpani (I can only assume that the timpani that we see in orchestras now actually came from China). Their first piece was called the Dance of the Dragon, and I have to admit that I was not so sure I was going to enjoy it but this proved to be so wrong. A new arrangement had been specially written for the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra with a new section featuring the percussions in the lead. The Eight Mallets joined the Orchestra enhancing the sound by adding the congas, bass drums and marimbas. It was the most amazing piece of music with a 6 minute cadenza passage for percussion having an amazing effect on the listeners. Bravo!!

Now for the 'Soaring Dragon', a piece of music written specifically for the Orchestra to play with the Red Poppy percussion group using multiple dragon drums. These dagu drums supplied the underlying rhythm. With crisp pounding rhythms and dynamic choreography, the female drummers struck the image of Chinese heroines. But the final piece was the piece the audience had been excitedly waiting for. Now it was our turn to perform and what a performance it was. 'Let the Thunder of Drums Roll' was the title of the piece, and it was written specifically for the Hong Kong Drum Festival, reflecting the many cross cultural features of Hong Kong. The conductor Yan Huichang spent some time teaching us how he wanted us to play our mini drums, all in Cantonese of course, but music crosses all language barriers so it was not difficult to work out what to do. Let the music begin.... Wow what a show stopper. We were lead by the orchestra, the children, The Eight Mallets and the Red Poppy, the pulsating power of drums almost lifted the roof off, every person in the concert hall giving their best and all held together so well by the conductor. The final applause was almost as deafening as the previous piece but even a standing ovation or two or three failed to drag out another piece from them, so with a pounding in our chests we left the hall.

If you wish to watch and listen to the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra then click on the following link. They are not playing any of the music that we saw but you can get an idea of the different instruments and sounds.

Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra

Now time to navigate back to our apartment. First we needed to catch a ferry across to Hong Kong Island. The night scape, all neon and bright lights was amazing. Unfortunately I only had a little camera and no tripod so the photos are less than impressive, but maybe you will get the idea. Once the weather cools a little we will have to do this trip across the harbour again to Kowloon but this time armed with better equipment to get better photos. What a fitting end to a fantastic evening.