For the first time in English, an in-depth look at the music and culture of Vietnam, written by one of the foremost scholars and performers of traditional Vietnamese music in the world today.

A fluid writing style, in-depth annotation, and personal notes by Phong Nguyen about every selection take this book out of the realm of dry scholarship and place it firmly within reach of all those who want to remember and preserve their heritage, as well as those who are being introduced to Vietnamese music and culture for the first time.

Appropriate and absorbing for music, ESL or social studies classes in grades 2-12, college courses in Southeast Asian music and culture, community outreach programs and libraries.

• Instrumental music and percussion instruction
• Recited and sung poetry
• 12 pieces with 9 full musical transcriptions
• Study guides and maps for group use
• 40 photographs of the people, countryside and musical instruments
• Drawings by Vietnamese artist Hop Thi Nguyen
• Phonetic spellings, pronunciation guide, translations

The companion recording features the Phong Nguyen Ensemble of Vietnamese musicians currently living in the United States. They perform all of the pieces featured in the book. The recording evokes a vivid soundscape filled with impressions of shimmering strings, drums, and gentle voices whose speech is astonishingly close to melody.

About the Authors:

Nguyen Phong, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized performer of Vietnamese traditional music. In a White House ceremony in September, 1997, he received the National Heritage Fellowship, our country's most prestigious honor for a traditional artist.

Nguyen Phong was raised in Can Tho province in the Mekong delta of South Vietnam, in a village called Tam Ngai. He was born into a musical family that played art music, music for festivals, rituals, ceremonies, Buddhist chant, chamber music and theatrical music. At the age of five, he began his musical training with his father, concentrating first on singing and progressing to instrumental instruction at age 10. His formal teacher for many years was a well-known music master in South Vietnam, Mr. Tram Van Kien (Muoi Kien) who taught him vocal and instrumental chamber, ritual and theater msuic, and Buddhist chant.

Even as a child Dr. Nguyen performed in many provinces of South Vietnam as a singer and instrumentalist. Over the years he concentrated particularly on the dan tranh zither, dan nguyet lute, and dan bau monochord. When he was ten, he moved to a town called Tra On, and several years later resettled in Saigon, where he studeid Western music, earned a degree in literature and philosophy from the University of Saigon, and taught high school literature and private music students. He was appointed principal of the high school and from 1970-74 introduced and taught classes in Vietnamese traditional music, not previously taught in schools, and only recently offered for credit. He left Saigon in 1974.

Dr. Nguyen earned his Ph. D. in Ethnomusicology at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, and served the National Center for Scientific Research through the mid-1980s. His research centered around various aspects of Vietnamese music, including traditional song, modal systems, and the mixture of Western and Vietnamese elements in the music of contemporary Vietnam and Vietnamese-American communities.

He is now considered to be one of the two recognized exponents of Vietnamese music on the international scene. A well-known and widely respected teacher and scholar, he has trained a number of stsudents (some of whom have gone on to teach traditional Vietnamese music in Vietnam), performed on numerous recordings on the Lyrichord and other labels, directed and participated in international concerts in Asia, Europe and America, and has further contributed to the field of Ethnomusicology through his books and articles. He has been the recipient of a number of grants by the United States and French governments to aid in the collection and preservation of Vietnamese musics. Dr. Nguyen is currently on the faculty of Kent State University in Ohio.

"Dr. Phong Nguyen is the ultimate 'insider,' trained in the tradition from childhood and one of the world's greatest exponents of traditional Vietnamese music. Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell combines her expertise in music education and her enthusiasm for Vietnamese music with Dr. Nguyen's profound knowledge. This will surely serve as a model for further publications in a field some call 'applied ethnomusicology'." --Terry E. Miller, Center for the Study of World Musics, Kent State University (OH)