VietNamNet Bridge – Vo Van Anh, a reputed Vietnamese zither player in the US, has returned home to seek cooperation with Vietnamese colleagues for a new project: new age zither music.

16-chord zither player Vo Van Anh

Van Anh became internationally known when she wrote music works and played them by Vietnamese 16-chord zither for the “Daughter from Da Nang” movie, which won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2002 and a nominee for the Oscar 2003.

She is a reputed zither player in the US. She recently returned to Vietnam to cooperate with music writer Do Bao to implement a brave new experiment, playing new age music with the Vietnamese zither.

In 1995, Van Anh, who won the first national prize for 16-chord zither in the same year, joined a group of artists of the Thang Long Water Puppetry Theatre to perform in the US. During this trip, she made friends with Steven Thu Huynh, a Vietnamese-American who was a volunteer with the Vietnam Health, Education & Literature Project. He became her husband in 2000.

Van Anh followed her husband to the US, where she enthusiastically participated in charity activities, for example playing zither to raise funds for children and the disabled in the US and Vietnam. She often played music in libraries and schools in the US.

Working with American artists, Van Anh realised that her zither was suitable for jazz and new age music. Therefore, she returned home to produce a special new age album, in which Vietnamese traditional musical instruments like zithers, bamboo flute, two-cord zither, one-cord zither, t’rung and piano accompany each other to create special sounds.

In late October 2008, some Vietnamese artists like musician Do Bao, Ho Nga, Thuy Anh, Thanh Huong will go to the US to join Van Anh’s Breath of Asia band to play in a charity show to raise funds for poor children and the disabled, held by VNHELP in San Jose and Huntington, California.

These artists and the Breath of Asia will return to Vietnam to perform and record the first new age music album with Vietnamese traditional musical instruments.

(Source: TP)