Extraordinary and Lovely Concert

Armidale may be a small rural town, but it stages a string of impressive musical events annually. Last night we were privileged to hear a group called Arcadia Winds, five very young performers each of whom played a different wind instrument: flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and horn. They've only been going for 4 years, but their quality of playing complex works was near perfect - in terms of speed, volume, rhythm, synchronisation, and so on. They performed in our local town hall to rapturous applause by an audience that not only included we oldies but also a surprising number of young kids.

Here's the group taken from their web-site, except that the guy on the left was replaced by Kate Proctor and the dame in the middle was impersonated by Rebecca Luton!

The two gentlemen on the right did a great job in explaining the works we heard, which included some well known items including Debussy's Petite Suite (1889) and Nielsen's Wind Quartet Op. 43 dating from 1885.

In a way, however, these were matched by other astonishing pieces, to which the audience responded enthusiastically. Given that most 'classical' music ranges over something like 500 years, we were stunned that two of the remaining three works were composed and received their first performances in 2017 ... and both were Australian in origin. One was Lachlan Skipworth's 'Echoes and Lines', premiered on 19 February, which explores musical echoes and linear progressions. And the second was Natalie Williams' 'Animalia'. Skipworth, by the way, is the same age as Bec, and Natalie is a few months older than Emily! Animalia was premiered in Canberra's National Portrait Gallery on 2 March this year and celebrates an exhibition which was then running  called 'Popular Pet Show'.

So guess what! Each of the four movements highlights the relationship of a pet with its owner. I have never come across this musical theme before and I bet that neither has any of my readers. The first movement explores the morning parting of a pet and its owner. The second movement was a dinner dance that occurs when a pet owner is about to feed their dog. The next item reflected the personalities of five different sheep!!! And, lastly, the music depicts a very young girl laughing and playing with her circus dog. Weird, eh!? Well, the music was spirited, complex, amusing and so on - well worth hearing.

The final piece was equally enigmatic. It was composed by Gyorgy Ligeti (1923 - 2006) in 1953 and called 'Six Bagatelles', mostly quick spirited little pieces and at one point the composer's score is marked 'as though insane'. Well, I found this work amusing, highly unusual, but not insane.

AS

Ethnic Food Market

One of the more interesting sights around the Sanouva Hotel where I was staying in Saigon was the local food market. I and several friends had a meal there every evening because it had an amazing choice of ethnic foods from all over Asia from what must have been some 25 different privately operated stalls. Moreover, one guy was offering good craft beers, the prices of meals were cheap, the customers came from all over the planet, we all sat chattering furiously on wooden benches, and the walls were painted in a style resembling graffiti! The only problem was finding a place to sit as the place was crowded out. It's a pity that I only took pictures of the walls!

AS

Water Water Water

One of the highlights of my visit to Vietnam was the exploration of the Mekong river's delta to the southwest of Saigon - a huge area of flat land created by silt deposited over thousands of years by the world's 12th longest river. It's 4350 km (2703 mile) length starts in Tibet (China) and continues through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia (Khmer Republic), and at last Vietnam. And, by the time it reaches the the Pacific Ocean it discharges something like 475 cubic km of water annually! This also means that Vietnam is slowly extending its territory out into the ocean.

By the time the river reaches towards the delta it splits, we were told, into nine distributaries, some of which are immense. We saw one, for example, that was already about 1 km (0.62 mile) across and that was some 100 km (62 miles) from the sea.

Travel in the delta was difficult in some places because the country is still rolling out bridges - presumably at great cost - and this meant waiting for car ferries. Fortunately, we must have arrived at good times during the day, thereby avoiding queues. On other occasions, our party was bundled into several small traditional flat-bottomed boats powered by external engines - no, we didn't have to row (!) to get to our destinations.

We were taken to some interesting places in this way: swamps, rice paddies, flower gardens, homes hosting visitors for meals (a form of tourism), a crocodile farm, fish farms and so on.

Well, have a look at these water images:

AS