LookAtVietnam – Local singers who crave international appeal are looking to foreign recording companies and distributors to market their talent beyond the country’s borders.

Chasing fame: Popular singer My Tam is working with South Korea-based Nurimaru Pictures to build up her image and market her name to fans in South Korea and Asia.

“Viet Nam’s music industry is still left open to world players, given its wealth of talent,” said Varavuthi Bulakul of GMM Grammy, a Thai music distributor.

“The country lags behind the world in the music industry, with none of its distributors working beyond its borders,” he said.

Most local singers who desire international fame, however, have found their dreams unaffordable, given the thousands of dollars it costs to make a CD abroad, in addition to the enormous marketing expenses.

But some of Viet Nam’s top talents have prospered abroad.

“My wife had a great opportunity to expand her reputation to not only Japan but the world at large,” said musician Anh Quan of pop diva My Linh’s contract with Japan-based distributor Pony Chanyon.

“Of course, singers must have the credentials to convince international producers of the profits they can make,” Quan added.

My Linh has released three CDs in the Japanese market, Made in Vietnam, Chat with Mozart and Let Love Sing for Itself, all of which were sung in Vietnamese.

The success of those CDs has encouraged her to release a fourth one in Japan.

Nurturing talent

With such an abundance of talent in the country, GMM Grammy is working towards setting up a training centre in Viet Nam to help promising, marketable singers.

Minh Thu, a rising rock star, works with Thailand’s House of Indies, which is preparing to launch her first solo CD in the Thai market next June, followed by another two discs featuring Thu and Thai singers.

“With the company’s global distribution network, I believe the CD can access the listening public in many countries,” Thu said, adding that she has had to shuttle between Thailand and Viet Nam to make the CD.

Duc Tuan, a singer who specialises in semi-classical music, said his musical CD Music of the Night would be distributed in Asia by Hong Kong-based Warner-Chapelle and in Canada by Articrecords.

Tuan attributes his advantage to the kind of music he has been practising, saying that “semi-classical music has the same norms, regardless of culture, unlike pop music that varies from country to country”.

Another singer, pop diva sensation My Tam, is working with South Korea-based Nurimaru Pictures to build up her image and market her name to fans in South Korea and Asia.

Tam spent one year in South Korea practicing performance and dance skills as well as Korean pronunciation while working on a series of CDs called Time and Me.

All of the Vietnamese singers say their lives abroad are hectic, with many press conferences, TV appearances and live shows.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News