Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Professor and Doctor of Ethnomusicology Nguyen Thuyet Phong, a Vietnamese-American, has over the past 30 years worked untiringly for the promotion of Vietnamese music, especially folk music, with an attempt to make it a language for communication between Vietnam and the world.

Coming from a family of prominent musicians in the Mekong Delta, Phong practised music with a village master from the age of five and joined in performance of both cai luong (reformed theatre) and hat boi (classical theatre) from the age of 10.

After studying in France, where he earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology from Sorbonne University, Phong taught Asian music, including Vietnamese music, in more than 20 universities across the US and became a member of the US national jury of arts.

Apart from introducing Vietnamese music in the US as well as other countries, the ethnomusicologist has published much research and many recordings, including Traditional Music of Vietnam on Lyrichord, Vietnamese Music in France and the US on World Music Enterprises and Song of the Banyan on Music of the World. He has also made contributions to important music dictionaries, such as the Garland (the US), the New Grove (the UK), and the Iwanami Shoten (Japan).

Since 1994, Prof. Phong has returned to Vietnam many times to conduct further research on Vietnamese music and field trips for American researchers of folk music and international volunteers in Vietnam.

Prof. Phong has helped Hue local music and royal court music artists to perform in the US and American students to study the history, culture, arts and people of Vietnam.

These performances of Vietnamese music have helped American audiences develop a new perception of Vietnamese music and overseas Vietnamese realise the need for preservation of traditional Vietnamese music.

Apart from performing and teaching traditional Vietnamese music abroad, Prof. Phong has worked hard toward the aim of setting up a new field of study, ethnomusicology, in Vietnam.

Phong has transported to the country a rich selection of textbooks and materials, including recordings from new performances of artists and talks with Vietnamese music researchers, to serve his purpose.

Music researcher Prof. Phong is the second Vietnamese, after Prof. Tran Van Khe, to have his name and biography included in the world's music dictionary (The New Grove).

Prof. Phong was presented with the National Heritage Fellowship title, the US's highest prize for the folk arts, and with the "Honour of Vietnam" title by the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and the Far-away People Review.

Source: VNA