Tuesday night at Heliconian Hall was the time and place for a concert curated by, and largely performed by, Confluence Concerts’ young associate artists; the KöNG duo.  KöNG consists of two Toronto-Hong Kong percussionists; Bevis Ng and Hoi Tong Keung, pursuing doctoral studies in Toronto.  They were supported on some numbers by Ryan Davis (viola) and Ben Finley (double bass).

The concert was very much in two parts.  The first half was a series of fairly short pieces on the theme of “dreams”.  Perhaps designed to be impressionistic and to leave far from clear memories.  First up was the slightly jazzy, very complex My Missing Harbour by Fish Yu.  It blended tuned percussion and both string instruments in a largely tonal, slightly shimmery sound world.

There were impressionistic arrangements for percussion of works by Debussy and Schumann as well as pandemic inspired works by Ben Finley; Co-Presence, a complex work for bass and live electronics, and Dreaming, After All by Radia, aka Ryan; a meditation for viola on loneliness and disassociation.

There was the world premier of Menelaos Peistikos’ Dreams; a two movement work for percussion that explored somewhat darker aspects of dream; an inescapable maze perhaps, but although somewhat more abrasive and less “floaty” than some of the other works it certainly didn’t probe the darker side of the unconscious either.  The first half closed out with, appropriately enough, Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion.  It’s another interesting piece using all four musicians.  There’s a kind of minimalist riff for the percussion with the strings playing something almost akin to lounge jazz but more complex and which slowly fades away to… nothing.  So, all up, the first half featured some interesting music, on a theme, most expertly played

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After the interval we got “good morning, hong kong”; a multi media mash up evoking Hong Kong past and present.  It’s interesting that “Hong Kong as was” features so prominently in the consciousness of two people who must have been very young in 1999!  But that said the piece did evoke that sense of a mix of past and present, slow, fast and faster and the sense of a multitude next to the boundless sea.

Music for percussion by Patrick Hart, Ollie Hawker and Tona Scherchen-Hsiao was mixed up Happenstancer style; with the various movements from all of the pieces reordered to fit.  It was supported by taped sounds and really very evocative video of crowds, subway trains, trams and ferries.  There was even some rather charming singing at the end.  It was a most unusual but enjoyable and evocative creation.

Photo credit: Chara Tan