We have just finished a rather momentous weekend.  April 30th was the 40th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War (very important to Vietnamese) May lst was Workers Day (very important to Communists) and May 2nd was full moon (very important to Buddhists).   To add to all this, there was an International Choir Competition in Hoi An with choirs from 17 nations taking part from 29th April to 2nd May.

On the evening of the 30th, there was an openair concert by 5 of the choirs, which we attended (it was free) which took place in the square outside the Information Centre.   So we heard offerings by the Australians, the Indonesians, the Malaysians, the Philippinos and a school choir from Hanoi.

This last was most interesting, since it consisted of 70 children aged 6-15 accompanied by 3 different sized bamboo flutes and was obviously a folksong in which the children did wonderful imitations of bird calls and their fluttering, by using their fingers.  Very impressive, and different.

Of course, the Australian choir was a big one about 35 people - Far Eastern choirs lack basses and baritones and therefore are usually much smaller - 10-15 individuals.  And, like their traditional orchestras which lack anything in the Bassoon, Double Bass range, their work sounds a little thin, although accomplished enough.  The Indonesian choir was particularly fine, I thought, with the soprano soloist weaving her voice in between the choral singing, to great effect.

Apart from the nations mentioned above, there were choirs from China, Japan, Korea, Singapore