During one of my concerts in Taucha, Germany, last month, I asked the audience who knows the name Michael Vetter. Several people raised their hands. But as I expected, many people at the Ancient Trance Festival don’t know his name. Of course, quite a few more may have heard his music in the Age of Spotify: you listen but don’t know what album is playing, now that a physical relationship to the medium (as in the time of LPs, CDs) is outdated. Besides, Ancient Trance is not exactly overlapping with Vetter’s artistic direction. He was much more avant-garde, with musical influences from Baroque to Dada and Fluxus, and a host of visual influences, from mediaeval religious painting and Chinese calligraphy to comics.

In the next few weeks O TRIOM is looking back at the life and work of the instrumentalist, vocalist, painter, poet, pedagogue and ordained Zen master Michael Vetter (1943-2013). We will be showing how his legacy continues to inspire, inform and transform our performing today in several concerts, a lecture and workshops. Why? Certainly not because Vetter was such a fine overtone singer. There are and have been many fine overtone singers, and Vetter’s style of singing and performing was one of many – not ‘just’ one of many, but a very influential one, to be sure. In the 1980s, anyone wanting to do something with overtone singing went to Vetter’s workshops and bought his albums, at least in very active German-speaking areas (and The Netherlands too). Vetter set certain standards for overtone singing, for a certain period of time, and those standards hardly changed.

Michael Vetter making Indian ink drawings, Academia Caparaia, Italy, 2009. (Photograph Mark van Tongeren under protection of Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND)

The interest of O TRIOM in Vetter also started with overtone singing, but soon branched out in many other directions. For example: Vetter as a typical Zen Buddhist. He insists again and again that one should give undivided attention to what one is doing when making music (or anything else, though he would not talk about anything, but about art). And he applied this attitude in all his music, and all his other creative work, as well as his cooking and everyday life. When I read and re-read his texts, or when I go through the conversations we had and the interviews I did with him, I frequently stumble upon contradictions (literally: ‘counter-speaking’) concerning his spiritual or religious outlook. You may be looking to clarify his positions towards spiritual questions, and find that he has much to say about that. Many people felt he was a very religious person and his biography testifies to that. Certainly a believer! But then you will sooner or later find a remark in which he warns for overzealous religious interpretations. “Here and there one learns about the connection between overtones and Our Lord. That is far removed from me!” And yet, many of his art and music works bear very clear Christian (and not just Zen) elements.

It seems that it does not make sense. And that is exactly what we can take away from Michael Vetter (or maybe from Zen in general), and what keeps me coming back to him for fresh insights: there is no single, or final way to talk about or do anything. There are only temporarily, or partially ‘true’ or ‘convincing’ arguments to believe, or positions to take. As soon as one clings too much to certain truths, it is time to let it go again and look for yet another perspective .

In the weeks to come we will prepare ourselves with this in mind: try as best as you can to follow certain aesthetic and creative paths, and be always willing to throw them overboard again and replace them with something new. I am excited about this moment in our O TRIOM collaboration, which began in early 2022, if I remember well. And I salute the brilliant artist who bridged so many visions and visuals, sounds and musics, thoughts and dreams in a lifetime bursting with creative output.

Read an earlier post about why we should remember Michael Vetter here.

PROGRAM

FOR CONCERT TICKETS

CLICK HERE

O TRIOM Artists

LEE Wei Lin

LU Qi Chung

Mark van Tongeren

Production

Organizer| Taiwan Overtone Singing Association TOSA
Executive Producer  | Lee Chichen
Visual Design  | Bai Chi Hao
Image source | Michael Vetter

Lecture| prof. CHUNG Mingder

Taiwan Overtone Singing Association is also on Facebook.

Photos from a 2014 concert by O TRIOM

O TRIOM 紀念米歇爾·費特大師 系列泛音講座、工作坊暨音樂會

與談者將說談泛音音樂在台灣發展的故事，從當年北藝大邀請國外泛音音樂家來台傳藝及演出，到《OM泛唱作為藝乘》一書的誕生，泛音藝術家米歇爾・費特大師的生平創作故事，及至往後泛音音樂在台灣生根2022年台灣泛音詠唱協會TOSA的成立。

＊同場放映呂啓仲拍攝之泛音藝術家費特大師來台紀錄片《Transverbal穿越語言的相遇》。

｜工作坊內容｜

介紹「泛音唱法」，引領學員如何唱和體驗泛音，藉由唱出和聽到泛音，踏上精神的探險之旅。

點此報名工作坊＆講座

O TRIOM 米歇爾‧費特大師 紀念音樂會

時間：

2023/10/21  六 19:00

2023/10/22 日  14:00

地點：

夢響廳 Dreamphony Hall

新北市蘆洲區光榮路97巷59號

**捷運蘆洲站步行約5分鐘**

演出者：Mark van Tongeren．呂啓仲．李維琳

 音樂會購票點此 

O TRIOM 演出者

製作團隊

主辦單位| |台灣泛音詠唱協會

執行製作  | 李紀辰

視覺設計 |  白濟豪

圖片來源 | Michael Vetter

講座講者| 鍾明德教授

台灣泛音詠唱協會Facebook

Read an earlier post about why we should remember Michael Vetter here.

The post O TRIOM remembers Michael Vetter appeared first on Fusica.

TOSA members performing on January 1 at Mei Garden Restaurant, Taipei

In the end it was Sunny Chen who has done endless amounts of paperwork to have the first small meeting of founders last December. My heartfelt thanks to her and all those who signed up as founders. The next step is to go public, and this will happen right after Chinese New Year, on February 19. On that day our chairman Sky Tseng will tell more about bigger and smaller events we are going to host every year; about a practising group to brush up your overtone singing and chanting; about concerts we will jointly attend or important books and pieces or CDs we will discuss. Professor Chung Minder, or taimu as he is known to many, will look back to twenty years of overtone singing in Taiwan, and perhaps look forward too. My old friends, and long-time overtone singing lovers (and love-couple in the first place) Wei-Lin and Qi-Chung will do a presentation, and so do I: this serves as the upbeat to a full concert we are preparing for later this year.

To make all of this happen, we need to reach a minimum of 45 members by January 28 (and not by February 19, as we thought before). We hope you will consider to sign up this month and give our association a flying start. A little extra support at this point is much needed since only a small inner circle of people knows about this initiative. Once we get started in February we can reach out to more people.

TOSA founding meeting no. 1, 12/12/2021

2021 年 12 月 12 日，我們著手成立 TOSA，即「台灣泛音詠唱協會」（Taiwan Overtone Singing Association）。協會將在 2 月 19 日舉辦一場盛大活動，在一個美麗的新空間舉辦音樂會和講座，作為協會對外公開的開端。我想在此邀請你一同加入，成為協會成員。我長久以來都夢想能在泛唱領域為自己和其他藝術家創建更實際的平台。但由於中文讀寫能力有限，我遲遲無法實現這個願望。直到我身邊的合作夥伴 Sunny Chen 和 Jackal Mei 開始詢問我相關的想法，並提出發展組織及舉辦大型活動的建議，我的心願才開始逐步實踐。目前為止已經有不少人學習泛唱，可能是跟我學習，也可能是跟台灣或國外的老師學習（通常來自內蒙古或圖瓦）。近年來，有好幾位技術純熟的表演者和泛音愛好者，他們的技巧與日俱進。我在泛唱方面的工作往往是獨立進行，但我認為是時候幫助更多有志專精泛音詠唱的人發光發熱了！同時我也想與更多人分享泛唱各種形式的美，涵蓋藝術、療癒、傳統、現代等各個層面。

更多關於 2 月活動和 TOSA 計劃的訊息都可以在這裡找到。請註冊並成為會員！根據規定，我們需要在 2 月 19 日之前招募足夠的會員，所以如果可以，請現在（或在 1 月底前）點選連結，協助我們推動計劃。非常感謝你！

最後是 Sunny 做了大量文書工作，在去年 12 月召開了第一次小型的發起人會議。我衷心感謝 Sunny 和所有登記的發起人。協會的下一步是對外公開，時間將是農曆年後的 2 月 19 日。那一天，理事長 Sky Tseng 將詳細介紹協會大小年度活動、一起精進泛唱技巧的練唱小組、成員共同參與的音樂會、還有我們列入討論項目的重要書籍、作品和專輯。鍾明德教授（也就是大家熟知的大木老師）則會回顧台灣 20 年的泛音詠唱史。另外一個重頭戲是泛唱圈的佳偶啟仲和維琳的泛音雙重唱，他們是我的老朋友，也是資深的泛音愛好者。我自己也會有一段泛音獨唱，這兩段演出將為今年籌備中的正式音樂會開啟序幕。

為了實現這一切，我們需要在 1 月底前招募至少 45 名會員（不是之前以為的 2 月 19 日）。所以我們希望大家能在這個月註冊，讓協會能有一個好的開始。這方面我們非常需要一些額外的支持，因為目前只有少部分人知道這個計畫。一旦在 2 月正式對外公開，我們就能觸及更多人了。

時間: 2022年2月19日，14:00-16:00

地點: 好好說話工作坊,

         台北市中山區明水路575號B1

https://goo.gl/maps/tjjuF6zGF9vqGYmV8

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精彩分享包括:

1. 鍾明德教授分享〈泛音在台灣的歷史〉 

     (鍾明德教授為《OM:泛音詠唱作為藝乘》作者)

2. Mark van Tongeren， 泛音獨唱 

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The post Founding the Taiwan Overtone Singing Association appeared first on Fusica.