Detour
Elizabeth Brown
About this work:
After hearing and falling in love with the dan bau on a concert tour of Southeast Asia, I made a big detour in my musical life and spent winter 2003 as Artist-in-Residence at the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music through a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. There, I taught flute and studied dan bau and traditional Vietnamese music. The dan bau is a monochord (one-stringed instrument) played by plucking the string at the harmonic nodes and bending the notes with a water buffalo 'whammy bar'. It's amplified with the type of bullhorn used to blare propoganda all over Vietnam. Detour, written at the MacDowell Colony in 2004 and revised in 2006, is dedicated to Stefani Starin.
Year composed: 2006
Duration: 00:09:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 2-5 players
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Violin, 1 Cello, 1 Other Stringed Instrument(s)
Instrumentation notes: The 'other stringed instrument' is the dan bau (traditional Vietnamese monochord). Flute doubles on alto flute.