The research team was centered around members of The Six Tones: Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, Stefan Östersjö, Ngô Trà My and Henrik Frisk and their collaboration with two professors of ethnomusicology, David Hebert and Håkan Lundström. Further, the project could never have taken place without the contributions of with master performers and music researchers in Vietnam: Phạm Công Tỵ, Phạm Văn Môn, Huỳnh Tuấn, Huỳnh Khải, Kiều Tấn, Lương Huệ Trinh, Đặng Hoàng Linh, Thiện Vũ and Viết Tân. The album was produced with the independent Swedish sound engineer and Grammy nominee Torbjörn Samuelsson. The final mixes were made by Per Sjösten and are scheduled for release on Footprint Records.
BIOGRAPHIES
Henrik Frisk
Henrik Frisk (PhD) is an active performer of improvised and contemporary music and composer of chamber and computer music. With a special interest in interactivity, most of the projects he engages in explores interactivity in one way or another. Though his education from the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark, is in music he also works with software development within the framework of his artistic practice. His artistic Ph.D. Dissertation `Improvisation, Computers, and Interaction' was defended at Lund University, Malmö Academy of Music, in October 2008. After having pursued a career in jazz in the nineties with performances at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival, NYC and Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, he is now spending most of his time composing and playing contemporary music with a recent interest in sound installation and sound art. He has worked with musicians and artists such as David Liebman, Gary Thomas, Michael Formanek, Richie Beirach, Jim Black, James Tenney, Luca Francesconi, Cort Lippe and others. He has performed in Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, China, Cuba, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United States and Vietnam. As a composer he has received commissions from the Swedish Broadcasting Company, NOMUS, Stockholm Saxophone Quartet, Dave Liebman Big Band, Copenhagen Art Ensemble, Ensemble Den 3. vej, Statens Kunstfond, Ensemble Ars Nova and several big bands, soloists and ensembles in Scandinavia. He has made numerous recordings for American, Canadian, Swedish and Danish record labels.
David G. Hebert
David G. Hebert (born 1972) is a musicologist and comparative educationist, employed as Professor of Music at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (Bergen, Norway), where he leads the Grieg Academy Music Education (GAME) research group. He has contributed to the fields of music education, ethnomusicology, sociomusicology, comparative education, and East Asian Studies. Since 2018, he has been manager of the Nordic Network for Music Education, a multinational state-funded organization that sponsors intensive Master courses and exchange of university music lecturers and students across Northern Europe. His scholarship applies an international-comparative perspective to study pluralism, identity, and cultural relevance in music education, as well as processes by which music traditions emerge and change - both sonically and socially - as they are adopted into institutions. He has authored and edited several books, and contributed chapters to 20 other books, proceedings and encyclopedias, as well as articles in 35 different professional journals.
Huỳnh Tuấn
The đàn kìm player Huỳnh Tuấn was born in 1972 in Cần Thơ, a small city in the Mekong delta in Vietnam. He is a member of the Đờn Ca Tài Tử Association in Hồ Chí Minh city since 1993 and currently works at the Cải Lương theatre Trần Hữu Trang. He recorded many CDs with different Đờn Ca Tài Tử ensembles, including the trio with Văn Môn and Phạm Công Tỵ.
Nguyễn Thanh Thủy
Nguyễn Thanh Thủy is a leading đàn tranh player/improviser in both traditional and experimental music. She was born into a theatre family and was raised with traditional Vietnamese music from an early age in Hà Nội. She studied at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music where she received her diploma in 1998, followed by a Master of Arts at the Institute of Cultural Studies in 2003. Since 2000 she holds a teaching position at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. She has toured in Asia, Europe and the USA. She has received many distinctions including the First Prize and the Outstanding Traditional Music Performer Prize in the National Competition of Zither Talents in 1998. Nguyễn Thanh Thủy has recorded several CD’s as soloist with orchestra and solo CDs, which were released by Phương Nam Film Vietnam; by dB Productions Sweden; Setola di Maiale Italy and Neuma Records, USA. Between 2009 and 2011, she was involved as an artistic researcher in the international research project (re)thinking improvisation, a collaboration between the Vietnam National Academy of Music and the Malmö Academy of Music. Between 2012 and 2019 she carried out an artistic doctoral project at the Malmö Academy of Music concerned with gesture in traditional Vietnamese music. She received her PhD degree in November 2019. Between 2019 and 2021 she was a postdoctoral researcher in Musical Transformations, a senior artistic research project looking at musical change, in transcultural and intercultural settings. Between 2021 and spring 2023, Nguyễn was an international postdoctoral research fellow at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and at the Institute of Arts, Faculty of Education Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Her artistic research project Music and identity in diaspora was funded by the Swedish Research Council.
Ngô Trà My
Ngô Trà Mystudied at the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music, where she received her diploma in 1994 and a master of pedagogy in 2007. Since 1994 she teaches the đàn bầu at the conservatory in Hanoi. Tra My has taught, recorded, performed, introduced Vietnam traditional music in Vietnam as well as abroad in many events as Vietnam Culture days, International music festival, such as: Cracking Bamboo Hanoi and Indonesia 2010, Hanoi Sound Stuff 2010, Arts International Festival in North Korea 2013, Harry Parth Festival in USA 2018, No man’s Land Singapore 2017,Taipei Arts Festival: Noise Essembly 2018, Hanoi New Music Festival 2018, Asian Meeting Festival Tokyo 2019, EXPO 2020 Dubai 2022, India – Asean Music Festival 2022. Tra My was Vietnamese traditional instrument’s visiting lecturer at the Malmo Academy of Music, Lund University (from 2006 to 2009) and in 2006, she became the member of The Six Tones and, with this group she has had many performances in Vietnam, Singapore,Scandinavia, England, Belgium, Austria, Poland and the US. Since 2008, Tra My is the Vietnamese representative in the Music Committee and member of ASIAN_Korea Traditional Orchestra (Asia Traditional Orchestra), member of One ASIA Traditional Orchestra (since 2013), music advisor of C asean Consonant Ensemble (since 2015), member of Thang Long traditional music band (since 2008) and of the New music band MMTM (since 2016).
Stefan Östersjö
Stefan Östersjö is a leading classical guitarist specialising in the performance of contemporary music. As a soloist, chamber musician, sound artist, and improviser, he has released more than thirty CDs and toured Europe, the USA, and Asia. He has collaborated extensively with composers and performers across cultures, in the creation of works involving choreography, film, video, performance art, and music theatre. As a soloist he has worked with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Péter Eötvös, Pierre-André Valade, Mario Venzago, and Andrew Manze. Stefan Östersjö is Chaired Professor of Musical Performance at Piteå School of Music, Luleå University of Technology. He is currently also a guest professor at Ingesund School of Music, Karlstad University of Technology, Professor II at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and associate professor at DXARTS, University of Washington.
Phạm Văn Môn
The guitarist Phạm Văn Môn was born in 1963 in the small town of Gò Công, south of Sài Gòn, in the Mekong delta. Môn has been a leading tradition bearer of Tài Tử, ever since his professional career started in 1987. He has won many awards in national competitions, both as a soloist and in ensembles, and has toured frequently in Europe, most often in France. Among his recordings, two albums have been particularly influential: Điệu đàn phương nam (1998), and Cung thương Hòa Điệu (2005). It is notable that Phạm Công Tỵ appears on both records, and Huỳnh Thanh Tuấn on the second one, while on the album from 1998, Cơ Thụy, plays đàn tỳ bà and Ba Tu plays đàn kìm. Between 2004 and 2014, Phạm Văn Môn was much appreciated as the artistic director of Tiếng Đàn Tri Âm, a television program on Đờn Ca Tài Tử.
Phạm Công Tỵ
Phạm Công Tỵ was born in 1956 in Sài Gòn and has been a professional Đờn Ca Tài Tử player since 1975. He has received many distinctions, awarded medals from the Vietnamese government for promoting traditional culture, such as National folklore Master In 2007 and Meritorious Master in 2015. He has taught many well known Đờn Ca Tài Tử players in Vietnam. Among his recordings, two albums have been particularly influential: Điệu đàn phương nam (1998), and Cung thương Hòa Điệu (2005).
