Pop singer Duc Tuan in a publicity still for his new album,

A local pop singer has completed an unprecedented crossover into the world of English-language show tunes.

After shooting to fame for his win at the Ho Chi Minh City Television Singing Voice Contest in 2000, the singer quickly began making plans to expand outside conventional pop.

He’s since released successful pop albums as well as popular renditions of traditional Vietnamese songs remixed to new modern arrangements.

After pioneering what is now known as the “semiclassical” genre, Tuan is ready to blaze a completely new trail into territory uncharted by Vietnamese singers: western opera and Broadway musicals.

On June 29, Tuan will release “The Broadway Album – Music of the Night”, a collection of 11 songs in English and French, culled from famous western musicals and operas.

Tuan said the goal of his album was to approach the classical songs in his own way with new conceptual ideas.

Thus, he had the album arranged in Montreal by genre-bending Vietnamese-Canadian composer Lai Vu Han Duong, known as Ignace Lai, who has years of experience working with Broadway musical styles, operas and Vietnamese folk music.

Lai first gained recognition by blending Broadway and traditional Vietnamese music in Huyen Cam (a kind of string instrument) and Ben em (Près de toi), two operas he wrote and produced in Canada.

For Tuan’s album, Ignace has mixed pop, electronic, jazz and classical music to arrange the songs.

Minh Duc, a representative of Phuong Nam Film, which produced the album, said that while Music of the Night aimed to entice Vietnamese audiences with foreign tunes, it also aimed to entice foreign audiences with Vietnamese performances.

“It is up to Duc Tuan and other young and talented artists to bring the world closer to Vietnam, as artists in The Philippines, Thailand, Korea or Japan have done,” says Duc.

Going international

Though releasing an opera-Broadway musical album has been Tuan’s dream for at least seven years since he first traveled to the US and experienced real Broadway theater live, it wasn’t until he spent time in the UK and Canada recently that he gained the confidence he needed to give the album a shot.

Overseas, he was able to hone his skills working with successful professionals in the musical and opera business.

“I was very lucky to meet and be trained by many great teachers,” said Tuan. “After overcoming many shortcomings, now I believe in myself.”

Tuan said that working with experienced veterans like Ignace and composer Paul Bateman is what gave him the skills to pull it off.

And Duc has not left international collaboration out of the album.

He has brought in famous Canadian pop singer and opera star Genevieve Charest to fill one half of the duet on the album’s title track from Phantom of the Opera.

“I accepted Tuan’s invitation because there’s a common ground between my style and his great voice,” Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborers) newspaper quoted Charest as saying. “The most important reason for me to participate is Tuan’s great passion.”

“The Broadway Album” consists of 11 songs from famous musicals and operas: Memory (from Cats), This is the Moment (Jekyll & Hyde), Sunset Boulevard (Sunset Boulevard), Loves Changes Everything (Aspects of Love), Any Dream Will Do (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor-Dreamcoat),

Man of La Mancha and The Impossible Dream (Man of La Mancha), Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (Les Misérables), Le Temps des Cathédrales, The Phantom of the Opera and Music of the Night (The Phantom of the Opera).

On August 29, Tuan will play a concert featuring songs from the album in HCMC.

Besides 11 songs on the album, Tuan’s performance will also feature Genevieve Charest and Vietnam’s top operatic soprano, Ngoc Tuyen, in presenting seven other songs from a different set of musicals.

The live show will feature arrangements and orchestrations by Paul Bateman and Tuan will not only show off his voice but also his dancing skills alongside one of Vietnam’s top dancers, Khanh Thi.

Reported by Kim