Narongrit Dhamabutra
Narongrit Dhamabutra, a renowned composer and academic will be on campus, Friday, September 12 for a lecture and a special performance of his composition, “Quintet For the Spirits of ASEAN.”
At noon, Professor Dhamabutra will deliver the lecture, “Integrating Southeast Asian Cultures in Contemporary Composition” in the NIU Music Library, located adjacent to the concert hall lobby in the NIU Music Building. All are invited. Refreshments will be provided.
At 6 p.m., the Avalon String Quartet and guest pianist Winston Choi will perform “Quintet For the Spirits of ASEAN” in the NIU Recital Hall. There is no charge for this performance.
Winston Choi is associate professor of piano and the head of the piano program at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.
Quintet for the Spirits of ASEAN
Sponsored by the office of the National Research Council of Thailand, Quintet for the Spirits of ASEAN aims to pass down the tradition of quintet composition that flourished in the common era. Distinctively, it pursues the uniqueness of applying ASEAN music scholarship with western musical grammar. Modes, rhythm, form, harmony, texture, and indigenous performance techniques of ASEAN music are integrated creatively with western sonority.
As such, the “Quintet for the Spirits of ASEAN” is not an arrangement of folk melodies, but a sophisticated composition that results from an in-depth synthesis of folk materials, along with the expertise to incorporate contemporary western composition techniques, advancing it to an intellectual composition. The 45-minute composition is constructed in the genre of Program music, comprising a Prelude, 10 movements, and a Postlude.
Professor Dr. Narongrit Dhamabutra
Born in 1962, one of the most respected Thai composers, Professor Dr. Narongrit Dhamabutra received a doctoral degree in music composition from Michigan State University. His compositions have been performed regularly by leading orchestras and ensembles in the United States, Europe, Asia, Russia, and Australia, such as The Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Verdehr Trio (USA), IRCAM Ensemble (Paris), Southwest German Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Stella Nova, Ensemble Kochi, New York New Music Ensemble, Athens State Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Weidner Philharmonic and the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris). In Thailand, a number of his compositions were performed by the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University Symphony Orchestra and Thai Youth Orchestra.
Dr. Narongrit Dhamabutra was honored the title of Silpathorn Artist in 2008 and National Artist of Thailand in 2021 for his outstanding artistic career. Currently, he is a full professor of Music Composition at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University.
