Vo Van Anh plays dan tranh at a traditional music club in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – World renowned
traditional musician and composer Vo Van Anh is returning to Vietnam, her
homeland, to continue implementing her Master-Apprentice programme.
The programme involves having famous
musicians teach Vietnamese folk music to students from the country and abroad.
This year, it aims to help young music
learners who love Vietnamese traditional music and instruments like the dan
tranh (16-chord zither), dan bau (monochord) and several others to connect with
eminent people like artists Xuan Hoach and Trong Thuy.
After one year, participants will perform
before community as part of efforts to preserve and develop the arts, Anh said.
One of the ideas she is pursuing is to have
the students play once a week at Qua An Ngon chain of restaurants, a culinary
and tourism hub in Hanoi or at the ancient Van Mieu (Temple of Literature).
“Many of my students from the US and other
countries such as Spain and Portugal who are accompanying me on this trip will
join the programme,” Anh said.
She set up a fund called Music Bridge in
2013 to encourage young musicians to compose, perform and teach traditional
music and instruments. Their works would be an outlet for them to express their
sentiments.
“By doing so, we can develop and preserve
our culture. Two workshops have been held in Ho Chi Minh City since the fund was set
up,” Anh told Viet Nam News.
Anh said movie producers (in the US and
other countries) who wanted to use her music for their films have donated to
the fund. For example, a producer will not have to pay royalties for her music
but donate money to the Music Bridge fund.
Anh said she was particularly grateful to Pham
Thi Bich Hanh, the owner and founder of Quan An Ngon restaurant chain in Hanoi
for her tireless contributions to the fund, organising concerts for her and
artists and auctioning many items including her dan tranh.
Hanh said her aim in setting up the Quan An
Ngon restaurants was not only to introduce and develop traditional Vietnamese
cuisine but also to preserve it for future generations. Anh has a similar purpose,
so “our thoughts meet, and I try to help”.
“She not only has a great passion for
traditional music but also knows how to inspire young people to get involved
and love the art,” Hanh said.
Hanh’s daughters Do Minh Phuong, 15, and Do
Ha Phuong Anh, 11, have been learning to play the piano, but they are also keen
on the dan tranh.
“We like the way teacher Anh performs the dan
tranh and the way she teaches us,” said Phuong.
For example, when playing the folk song Keo
Luoi (Drawing Fishing Net), Anh performs with the action of a real fisherman
casting and drawing the net.
“I understand the hard work a fisherman has
to do to earn a living. Thanks to her, my performance improves every day,” said
Phuong. She said she loved the dan tranh because it helps her understand her
country’s cultural past.
“She teaches us how to express our feeling
and sentiments through breathing and moving while performing,” said Phuong, who
played the zither with a group of foreign students at the Kennedy Center in
June 2015.
Anh tries to compose music that the youth
can play on traditional instruments so that the music can give voice to the new
generation and express their feeling.
She recalled: “Once I had to make up a
special version to teach my Japanese student. One day, I told her to play a
Vietnamese folk song in which she had to mimic the sound of rain in Vietnam.
She played again and again but I couldn’t hear the sound I expected. I told her
that the raining sound in the country is often heavy, causing leaves to fall
and tree branches to break.
“The Japanese student understood. She said
the sound of rain in her country is not as heavy as ours. So after hearing my
explanation and watching my performance, she can play the Vietnamese folk song
well,” said Anh.
Anh recalled the oldest student she’d ever
had, an American woman named Laura Lopez, 84, who teaches piano to her two
daughters at her home. Once, Laura had a chance to enjoy Anh’s dan tranh
performance.
Laura said Anh played the instrument and
her Vietnamese folk songs beautifully that it inspired her to learn it. Laura
was very happy when Anh agreed to teach her.
Laura added through it she had come to know
Vietnamese culture and could understand the origin of the songs she played. She
even joined others to perform the Vietnamese instrument before US audiences.
International cooperation
Anh’s collaboration with many world famous
musicians has expanded her musical repertoire and helped her share Vietnamese
music with international audiences.
“When I first resettled in the US, it took
a long time to be understood by others, because foreigners only knew Vietnam
through the war, not its culture. So I have tried my utmost to bring our
culture to the world through my music composing and teaching.”
Anh was born in 1975 in Hanoi. She began
learning traditional music at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music (now the Vietnam
National Academy of Music) since she was six. She graduated from the school in
1992.
Bich Vuong, one of her teachers, said Anh
was always a leading student in the school. She won the first prize at the
National Zither Competition and a Best Performance Award in HCM City in 1995.
Since settling in the US in 2001, she has
focused on collaborating with musicians across different music genres to create
new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience and
preserving her cultural legacy through teaching.
In 2002, she released her first CD, Twelve
Months, Four Seasons. Her third CD, Three Mountain Passes, released in 2013,
featured her as the guest artist with the Kronos Quartet.
Anh has also collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma,
the Southwest Chamber Music, Eastby Oakland Symphony and other World Music (WM)
artists. She has been invited and participated as screening judge in the WM
category for the 2015 and 2016 Grammy Awards. She recently became the first
Vietnamese artist to perform at the White House.
Her “Odyssey – from Vietnam to America”
premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2016. This work aimed to highlight the
incredible power of the human spirit to survive as embodied by the so-called
boat people. It also sought to deliver the message of forgiveness, peace and
unity.
Her works have earned high praise from the
BBC, the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets. It was chosen among the
National Public Radio’s (NPR) 10 Favourite World Music Albums of 2013.
Mark Swed of the Times said: “Vo’s Three
Mountain Pass which includes her music and traditional Vietnamese pieces on a
number of Vietnamese instruments interestingly begs the question of what is
American music, especially since a knockout on the disc is her transcription of
French composer Erike Satie’s Gnossienne No 3.”
Molly Sheredan of the New Music Box said:
“Indeed, Vo’s energy and enthusiasm for musical creativity seems to transcend
any particular instrument and instead feed of a fundamental sonic curiosity as
well as a desire to reflect on her culture heritage and share those sounds with
new ears.
Heather Morris of the Peninsula Review
wrote: “Her appearance was dramatic, in a stunning costume and headdress, her
music was riveting, her stage presence theatrical and her contribution to
Vietnamese music culture outstanding.”
Despite winning a lot of successes and
titles, Anh still has a wish to return to Vietnam and bring together
traditional music lovers to popularize the art and preserve it.
She wants the State to pay more attention
to traditional music artists because they are part of “Vietnam’s giant library
of culture”.-VNA