Flute Player brings rain to Australia

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 04, 2008 – The Canadian flautist Ron Korb seems to have a talent for more than just music. In a recent appearance in Australia it seems he has repeated a trick he has done before in Asia. In Taiwan some call him the rainmaker because the phonetic spelling of his name in Mandarin is actually translated into Thunder Blessing. Ironically, this name became very appropriate when he performed a concert there in 2002 during the worst drought Taiwan had faced in twenty years.

The prolonged drought had created severe water shortages throughout the country and irrigation was suspended in some areas. The hi-tech semiconductors industry was also in jeopardy because of the large amounts of water needed to clean newly etched computer chips. To conserve water for this kind of manufacturing, fourteen thousand hectares of rice fields were closed. For residents both in rural and urban areas water was rationed; and in the capital Taipei there was rotating rationing between the 12 districts. Even water from the Sokobaru Dam in Okinawa, Japan was shipped in tankers as emergency relief.

After Ron played his concert tour there however, it started to rain and slowly over time the water shortage problem passed. A number of Taiwanese had commented that they thought Thunder Blessing's flute playing had saved the country from disaster. However, when he performed in Taiwan in 2004 it seemed he bought too much water as Typhoon Mindulle swept in shortly after causing a lot of flooding and damage.
During his recent performances at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in South Australia, Ron found a lot of Australians are very concerned about water shortages much like the Taiwanese were in 2002.

Australia is experiencing the worst drought in 1000 years according to scientists. Water levels in the rivers and streams have lowered and many farmers have been forced to abandon their properties. Some Australians are angry that the government hasn't dealt properly with the drought. However, the options are costly and controversial.

One far-fetched solution is to harvest icebergs from Antarctica. The icebergs could be located by satellite and then dragged by powerful tugboats, taking around three months to arrive in Australia where they would be processed. The disadvantage of this method is that it creates many problems for marine eco systems and moving the Icebergs in the open sea is quite dangerous.
Another option is to build desalination plants similar to the ones used in Dubai. The challenges with building desalination facilities are that they are expensive to construct and use a lot of energy. If the energy is produced by fossil fuels then the green house emissions will contribute to global warming. However, a desalination plant in Perth, Western Australia has been in operation since 2006, run by renewable energy from the Emu Downs Wind Farm.
Ron Korb travelled to the Outback with Toby Hauk and Tobais Fetzer who are students of Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart. The two young Germans have been in Australia for the last six months working as interns on experiments concerning atmospheric science. Ron joked with the students that the Australian government should hire him to bring some rain by playing the flute. Miraculously when his run of seven performances were finished it did start to rain when he visited Victor Harbour. The temperature dropped dramatically in the region from 40 to 18 degrees Celsius and then it continued to rain for three days in Adelaide. Mr. Hauk has reported that in the last eight days since then they have experienced 35-knot winds with heavy showers and even hail.

Is it possible that music could bring rain? The ancient Egyptians believed it did as did certain First Nation tribes in North America. In Eastern Europe there is some traditional music and dance that people believe can affect weather conditions such as the Romanian rain ritual called Paparuda.
When asked to comment on the results of the flute playing, the German students responded, “There seems to be a kind of supernatural quality to his flute sound but there is no scientific reason why this should cause changes in weather.” However Mr. Hauk said kiddingly, “I think he should send a bill to the Australian government anyway.”  Mr. Fetzer agreed and added, “After the bad weather we have had in the last week here in Australia I would ask him next time he visits Europe please DO NOT play the rain song”.
Flutist Ron Korb been travelling for years collecting and studying indigenous woodwinds from  Japan, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, First Nations and Ireland. He has released thirty CDs internationally and his music is steeped in the diverse cultural traditions and experiences of his travels and of growing up in Canada.

After graduating with honours from the University of Toronto with a degree in music performance, he began studying Asian bamboo flutes with masters from many countries. At the same time, Ron was writing songs for major artists in Hong Kong such as Alan Tam, Stephanie Lai and Yvonne Lau. One of his songs reached double platinum status and another song written for Roman Tam won the award for  Best Original Composition  by RTHK (Radio and Television Hong Kong).

Ron has played on dozens of major motion picture soundtracks many of which have won Gemini awards and several that have been nominated for awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards. Some of the films have included Ang Lee s The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil, Atom Egoyan s Exotica, Sweet Hereafter and Felicia s Journey, Mira Nair s Kama Sutra John Woo s Blackjack.  More recent credits include The Snow Walker and Return To Kandahar, Being Julia and James Ivory s The White Countess.

Ron Korb has been featured on many television and radio programs throughout the years and has performed for  Queen Elizabeth, Princess Takamado, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister Kim Campbell and was featured on the World Youth Day recording for Pope John Paul s 2002 tour of North America. Ron s exotic woodwinds were featured on guitarist Liona Boyd s most recent album Camino Latino which was nominated for a Juno award and Olivia Newton John s latest CDs Grace and Gratitude and Christmas Wish.

Ron has performed twice at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, The Glastonbury Festival in England and also represented Canada at Expo 2005 in Nagoya, Japan. Other major concerts include Madison Square Gardens in New York, Heian Shrine in Kyoto, The National Theatre in Panama and Arnhem Cathedral in Holland. He has also had several Pan-Asian tours of  Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Thailand,  and Taiwan.