Nguyễn Thanh Thủy is a leading đàn tranh player/improviser in both traditional and experimental music. She was born into a theatre family and was raised with traditional Vietnamese music from an early age in Hà Nội. She studied at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music where she received her diploma in 1998, followed by a Master of Arts at the Institute of Cultural Studies in 2003. Since 2000 she holds a teaching position at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. She has toured in Asia, Europe and the USA. She has received many distinctions including the First Prize and the Outstanding Traditional Music Performer Prize in the National Competition of Zither Talents in 1998. Nguyễn Thanh Thủy has recorded several CD’s as soloist with orchestra and solo CDs, which were released by Phương Nam Film Vietnam; by dB Productions Sweden; by Setola di Maiale Italia and by Neuma Records & Publications USA. She collaborates with composers such as Richard Karpen (US), Kent Olofsson (SE), Nguyễn Thiện Đạo (FR/VN) and Trần Thị Kim Ngọc (VN). 

Sandeep Bhagwati is a multiple award-winning composer, theatre director, poet and academic, born in Mumbai (India). He studied composition and conducting at Mozarteum Salzburg and Musikhochschule München, and computer music at IRCAM Paris. His operas, multi-disciplinary staged works, compositions and comprovisations are performed worldwide at leading venues, festivals, theatres and museums and by renowned ensembles* and by eminent soloists**. He has published widely, both as a public voice and in academia, and is a sought-after keynote speaker and jury member and has founded/curated inter-arts festivals (e.g. A*Devantgarde München) and trans-traditional (a term he coined in 2010) projects with Asian composer-performers and European new music ensembles. Professor of Composition at Karlsruhe Music University since 2000, he became Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Arts at Concordia University Montreal in 2006. There he founded matralab, a interdisciplinary and trans-traditional research/creation node for live arts. Since 2013, he founded and directs trans-traditional music ensembles in Berlin, Pune, and Toronto. Between 2017-2023, he led the TENOR Network, a global research forum for new music notation practices and technologies. Since 2020, he is co-founder / co-editor of “TURBA - The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation”. His artistic work was the focus of a “Homage Season” 2023/24 initiated by the Quebec New Music Society (SMCQ) and has been a consultant for New Music Concerts Toronto since 2022.

Photo credit: Alain Lefort

Hand to Earth is a call to open ears: eluding genre, traversing continents and fusing ancient and contemporary. At its heart are Yolgnu manikay (song cycles), a 40,000+ year-old oral tradition from South East Arnhem Land, northern Australia. These songs exist to cross vast time and space, to continuously make the continuous – known as raki, the spirit that pulls all together, all performers all listeners. 

Hand to Earth developed during an Australia Art Orchestra (AAO) residency in the remote highlands of Tasmania. Yolgnu songman, Daniel Wilfred, and Korean vocalist, Sunny Kim, formed an effortless rapport; their combined vocal approaches expressing a deeply human commonality whilst also invoking raw elemental forces. Trumpeter and composer, Peter Knight draws upon his minimalist influence to create a bed of electronic atmospheres that meld beautifully with these contrasting voices. The combination of Aviva Endean and David Wilfred’s evocative sounds transport the listener to previously unimagined sonic plains. Together the ensemble wields these mystical elements with a masterful improvisational touch that AAO is famous for.

Photo by Sung Hyun Sohn