Musicians acknowledge scars of war

A music CD recently released by Vo Van Anh features Vietnamesetraditional music performed by master musicians in their later years.

 

Traditional musician Vo Van Anh plays zither and traditional percussion on the album.  

The CD entitled Ha Noi Masters: War Is A Wound, Peace Is AScar was produced by the Grammy-winning Ian Brennan and traditionalmusician Vo Van Anh. It has 10 songs performed on ancient Vietnameseinstruments by Vo Tuan Minh, Quoc Hung and Xuan Hoach.

Anh is a Vietnamese traditional musician living in the US.Her compositions include the Emmy-winning soundtrack to Bolinao 52 in2009 and the score for the Oscar-nominated Daughter From Danang in 2003.

“The master musicians are getting older and don’t have muchmore time with us. Each of them is a live dictionary of Vietnamese musicand culture,” Anh said. In particular, these musicians experienced theAmerican War.

Anh’s father, Vo Tuan Minh, was the first musician invitedto perform on the CD. Her father signed up to be a guitar player duringthe war to avoid having to hold a gun and shoot people.

“He was assigned to rush into battlefields right after thetwo sides stopped shooting to play the guitar and cheer up thesoldiers,” Anh said.

His father witnessed his friends being killed by straybullets as they played music. But for him, this high risk was stillbetter than holding gun and shooting at people. Minh composed a new songcalled I Want to Return to My Hometown, which he sang by himself on theguitar on the CD.

The CD also features three songs performed by musician XuanHoach. He experience the war when he studied at the Viet Nam Academy ofMusic (VNAM).

From 1966 to 1970, Americans attacked the north and Hoach was evacuated with his school to the northern province of Ha Bac.

“It was very tough to study and teach in the war time atunderground shelters,” Hoach said. “However, my passion for traditionalmusic never faded.”

He performed the traditional songs with bau (mono-chordinstrument); nhi ho (two-string bass fiddle) and nguyet (two-stringmoon-shape instrument).

Two other pieces, Lullaby and The Wind Blew It Awayperformed on the K’ni instrument, were also highlights of the CD. TheK’ni is a one-stringed instrument made from bamboo.

It is used by ethic minority groups living in the country’s Central Highlands. It is also called the mouth violin.

Many of the traditional instruments that appear on therecord act as a precursor to some key tropes of western rock music,Brennan said to The Guardian.

Brennan has produced three Grammy-nominated records (World Music- 2011, Best Traditional Folk- 2006 and 2007).

“For years I was interested in doing a project with Viet Nam veterans from the other side of the Viet Nam war,” Brennan said.

“The emotional trauma that many American veterans sufferedwas so profound, and yet the pain of the other country’s soldiers –those from Viet Nam – had been largely unrecognised in the US,” he said.”I believed that there must be a depth of experience there.”

He had the good fortune of contacting Anh. She helped himreach out within the Ha Noi community and assisted with her musicexperience, as well.

The two artists came to Viet Nam in 2014 summer to kick offthe project. They met and asked Vietnamese musicians to sing songs theywanted to share with audiences – even songs they’d never performed.

“I really hope this CD will get attention from people andremind them of our national culture and musical heritage,” Anh said. TheCD is on sale on Amazon. 

VNS

Musicians acknowledge scars of war

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