Concert Review 2017 Edinburgh, Scotland “Festival Fringe” – Ensemble Su

Ensemble Su: The Party Concert Performance Review, Monday, August 14, 2017 1pm

*****Stars

This quintet Ensemble Su lives up to its promotional campaign showcasing it as a collective that “crosses international boundaries with its blend of Korean traditional instruments”. This is an individually talented group of artists that “crosses international boundaries” with its fused engagement of Korean traditional instruments featuring the gayageum, a traditional Korean zither-like string instrument employing 12 strings though more modernistic adaptations have 21 or even more strings.

The gayageum, dating back to 1145 is celebrated as a favorite Korean musical instrument similar in tonality, timbre and technical difficulty to the Chinese guzheng, the Japanese koto, the Mongolian yatga, and the Vietnamese dan tranh. Also featured with the cello percussion underpinning and electronic piano was the Haegeum, an equally popular fiddle-like string instrument in traditional Korean music. With a slim rod-like neck, hollow wooden soundbox, and two silk strings, the dan trash sits vertically on the performer’s knee and is negotiated with a bow similar to the playing of a cello.

“Since 2010, Ensemble SU has been touring internationally bringing their unique blend of contemporary and classical music to world stages”, and it was dramatically affirmed at their afternoon concert today before a far too small, yet thrilled audience.

Ensemble Su’s concert was simply magical, professionally staged, polished, sophisticated, refreshing, and genuinely imaginative with finely crafted arrangements and compositions that explored the possibilities of mixing the old with the new with grand success. Such fusions of genres and instruments in world music don’t always work. Their effort in fact did evidenced by their ambitious interpretation of Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” (jazz pianist Dave Brubeck says “the tune was (actually) a group project with Desmond providing two main ideas”.

The Assembly Hall in Edinburgh is a fine setting for this group whose performance benefitted from the use of varied stage lighting segments. More of this feature might have enhanced their performance even more as well as adding at least one more work to their program. Perhaps shortening the drum solo by a minute or two, as well as the longer compositions might open the door to an additional five minutes for . That said, this was an exceptional, hip and classy concert by Ensemble Su to which every Fringe fan should encounter. —Jonathan