VietNamNet Bridge – Following tours to Norway and Hungary by the Vietnam Puppetry Theatre, and Vietnamese Culture Days in Russia by the Vietnam Light Music Theater, many other Vietnamese artists are preparing to go abroad.

Conductor Tran Vuong Thach

Seventy-eight members of the Symphony Orchestra of the HCM City Music, Ballet and Drama Theatre will participate in the Festival Week for Asian Orchestras in Tokyo on October 3.

The orchestra will perform Vo Dang Tin’s Memoirs of General Uprising, Concerto No.2 for Piano and orchestra by Rachmaninov, and Symphony No.2 of J. Brahms.

Honoured Artist Tran Vuong Thach will conduct the orchestra while Nguyen Bich Tra will play piano. Tran Vuong Thach is the major conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the HCM City Music, Ballet and Drama Theatre, and a lecturer of chamber music and features of musical instruments at the HCM City Conservatory of Music.

Thach graduated from the Liege Conservatory of Music’s Symphony Orchestra Conducting Faculty (Belgium). He also won the Praktijikdiploma-Orkestdirectie diploma of the Maastricht Conservatory of Music. From 1992 to 1995, he was the conductor of the Jean Noel Hamal Orchestra in Liege.

Nguyen Bich Tra began playing piano on stage at the age of 10. She had her first show with the symphony orchestra of the Hanoi Conservatory of Music after that. She is a student of famous artists like Professor, People’s Teacher Tran Thu Ha, Honoured Artist Nguyen Huu Tuan and Nguyen Nhat Anh.

In 1987, she won a scholarship to study at the Gnessin State Musical College in Russia. In 1992, she obtained a Japanese scholarship to study at the Tchaikovski Conservatory of Music. In 1997, she earned a Master’s of Arts.

Holding a scholarship of the Vietnamese government and the British Royal Music Conservatory, Bich Tra studied performance in the UK. In 1999, she graduated with the highest marks and earned the Walter MacFarren Award. In 2000, she won first prize in an international piano contest named Brant, in Birmingham, the UK.

She has performed in many countries, such as Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway, Spain, Italy, the US, etc. and won acclaim.

Bich Tra is working on three projects with Toccata Classics, a British recording firm. An album by Tra and German artist Sabine Grofmeier released in late 2007 was described by the Klassic Heute magazine (Germany) as “perfect”.

In other cultural news, a 14-member group of Vietnamese artist recently went to Italy to attend a cultural festival in Florence, which will run till October 8.

Le Duc Hai and Le Ngoc Thanh will perform performance art items entitled “Communicating with Time” and “Man – Mirror” at this festival.

Director Luu Huynh’s The White Silk Dress, after being screened at the Vietnamese Culture Days in Russia (which closed on September 21), will be introduced in Florence, along with the short film Love Man Love Woman by director Nguyen Trinh Thi and Terrace by Nguyen Ha Phong.

Ten deaf-and-dumb artists of Noi Den Troupe will perform “Our Story” dance item, which came out in 2002, arranged by dancers Le Vu Long and Luu Thu Lan.

(Source: TP)