The ‘Kaleidoscope’ series is a biennial festival organized by HANDS Percussion. Since 2009, percussionists and musicians from Taiwan, Japan, Spain, Norway, Netherlands, USA, Indonesia, Vietnam as well as homegrown groups, have been invited to be part of the festival. The festival does not merely encourage and facilitate cultural exchange but it also introduces different kinds of music to our audiences.
Besides concerts, there will be workshops and master classes. Performances at selected schools have also been planned. This year, we have invited Abbos Kosimov (Uzbekistan), Ben Walsh (Australia) and U-Hee Company (Korea) to participate. Locals, Mat Din and Dhol Alliance, will join us.
Here are some additional info on the invited artists:
Abbos Kosimov
Abbos Kosimov is widely appreciated as an international phenomenon; through his dynamic performances, He is recognized globally as a master of dorya and an ambassador of Uzbek culture. In 2005, Abbos moved to the United States and he has since performed with artists such as Randy Gloss, Austin Wrinkle, Houman Pourmehdi, Andrew Grueschow, Adam Rudolph, Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo, Terry Bozzio, Swapan Chaudhuri, Alim Qasimov, Kronos Quartet, Homayun Sakhi Trio, and Omar Sosa at the World Music Institute.
In 2009, He was awarded the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Apprenticeship grant to teach dorya rhythms as a master artist and mentor to Central Asian dancer and mentee Tara Pandeya. Following his participation in ACTA apprenticeship, he co-founded the non-profit group East West Centerpoint with artist, Tara Pandeya, to promote the arts and cultures of Central Asia. The organization strives to build dialogue, interest, tolerance and cross-cultural understanding between the Eastern and Western cultures through the preservation and development of Central Asian performing arts, education and research.
Abbos has successfully participated in numerous international festivals, concerts and university workshops in the United States, Canada, England, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, The United Emirates, Austria, Italy, Japan, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Greece, Bangkok, Taiwan, Australia, India, Malaysia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
Ben Walsh
Ben Walsh has been touring professionally as a musician and drummer since the age of 18 and is not showing any signs of slowing down the pace. He has earned himself a phenomenal reputation internationally and abroad and is celebrated as one of Australia’s most accomplished percussionists and performers.
A student of Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, his career began in 1994 when he formed the popular trio, Pablo Percusso, at the University of Western Sydney and for 8 years they toured throughout Australia and internationally in the US, Canada and Singapore. Ben later joined the Japanese taiko drumming group Taikoz and worked for 6 years with Ian Cleworth and master drummer Eitetsu Hayashi; extensively training in the Wadaiko drum form and performing in Japan.
After developing 4 self-directed solo shows and playing at the Sydney Opera House with two of these productions, Ben left for Asia, performing in Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore. He then transitioned into composition and sound design and composed numerous short film and modern dance scores, earning a nomination for Best Score at the prestigious Green Room Awards in Melbourne 2007.
His collaborations with master percussionist, Bobby Singh, have led to the formation of two groups: DHA and Circle of Rhythm with musical performances alongside well-known artists such as Billy Cobham, Ernest Ranglin and Airto Moreira. Ben and Bobby travelled to India several times for collaborations and performances in Mumbai, Delhi and Pune, which inspired the SBS documentary ‘I Belong Everywhere’, as part of the VIVA series, featuring Ben and Bobby’s musical adventures.
Ben was a co-director and performer for the Tom Tom Crew who sold out seasons in New York, Edinburgh, London and Sydney solidly for 5+ years. They toured extensively throughout Europe with seasons in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
U-Hee
The fundamental basis of our creative work is Korean percussion play. Since the beginning of U-HEE, we have tried many different kinds of performances based on traditional rhythms of Korea. As a result, we have created highly interactive programs along with our own unique performances. We believe that the sense of being one as a whole is vital in any communities and we tried hard to achieve this.
In Korea, ‘U-Hee’ originally means a ‘play’ or a ‘game’. The meaning was also used to describe, a few hundred years ago, a satire of the King and noble family. However, we have applied the word in another way in order to put a somewhat different meaning in different languages. The letter U from ‘U-Hee’ can also mean YOU in English while the word ‘HEE’ can also be understood as a PLEASURE in Chinese. When these two different meanings are applied to U-Hee, it creates a new meaning of ‘YOUR PLEASURE’. We would like to give the audience some ‘pleasure’ with our very special music and performance.