A very special musical delicacy was presented the last
Saturday in February at the Payap University Music Department in Chiang Mai.
Ohm
Chanteyoon plays ‘Czardas’ from Monti. His entire performance was filled
with fire and passion. He was accompanied on the piano by Bennet Lerner, one
of the teachers in the music department at Payap University.
The Multi Media Room, with its superb acoustics, was
decorated with flowers but not overdone to draw the concentration of the
audience away.
The many spectators were pleasantly surprised by the
performances, as some very talented students who knew how to please an
audience provided a well-chosen program.
Konkamon Sooksabai and Supichaya Chanokok opened the
musical ball with a Thai song, played on a soft sounding KIM, which had a
sound that reminded some of the Bavarian spectators of an alpine instrument
called the ‘Hackbrett’.
Guitarist Chakrit Ganjina elicited an overwhelming
applause from the audience for his rendition of Joplin’s ‘The
Entertainer’.
Piano pieces of the works of composers Schubert,
Villa-Lobos, Milhaud, Waxman and Mendelson were also technical and musical
highlights with outstanding sound quality. These were played by students
Eakachai Tadleg, Wacharat Pokpeomdee, Ekarat Kantawong, Pattarawan Poonpipat
and Pornjun Danpongpee, all of whom played to very high standards, as did
the Brass and String Ensemble.
Anucha Pintatham did something that even full time
concert clarinetists sometimes may not achieve when he performed an Andagio
clarinet concert from Mozart. He led the audience to a dream - full of
passion, self-confidence and sovereignty.
Ohm Canteyoon performed magic on the violin with
Monti’s Czardas; he brought association to this room which came near to
the Hungarian Puszta.
Sensitive but ebullient are words that can be used to
describe the way Suteeman Banlung played her horn instrument for the piece
‘Reveries’ by Alexander.
One thing that is sometimes not necessarily normal in
Thailand was that during the entire concert it was so quite in the audience
that a needle dropping would have shocked some people who were dreaming away
with the brilliant and passionate sounds of the old classical songs.
The concert’s finale was the fresh and funny Suki
Choire with the acapella pieces, ‘Why do fools fall in love?’ and ‘The
lion sleeps tonight’.
Chiang Mai, which many people still call the Rose of the
North, proved once again with this concert at Payap University that young
people can play old classical European masters of music with youthful charm
and fun.
The audience thanked them with huge applause, realizing that many of
these young musicians would have received standing ovations had they been
playing one of the big concert halls in Europe. Musical quality like this in
Chiang Mai should be brought to a bigger audience, since it could help to
make Chiang Mai, with its existing flair, into one of the top cultural spots
in the world.
