A Vietnamese with a dream of Jew’s harp
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Nguyen Duc Minh, the first Vietnamese artist to win the International Jew’s Harp Competition in Amsterdam in 2006, will perform in Paris from June 27 to July 23.
Minh’s Jew’s harp performance will be used as background music in a circus show titled in the circus show Lang Toi (My Village).
It cost Nguyen Duc Minh, who is now the only Vietnamese member of the International Society of Jew's Harp, a long hard journey to bring the Vietnamese Jew’s harp to audiences worldwide.
Born in 1980 in Muong Lay Town in the northern mountainous province of Dien Bien, Minh was first acquainted with the Jew’s harp when he was very small.
When he was 4, his family left for Ha Tay Province (now part of Hanoi). At 5, Minh started to learn to play the bamboo flute at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music.
Still, for over 10 years studying the bamboo flute, the fascinated sound of the Jew’s harp from childhood kept haunting him.
Then in 2000, the 20-year-old man took up the Jew’s harp, which was rarely known among Vietnamese audiences at the time.
The turning point of his life came when he met German musician Clements Voight who introduced him to Vietnamese-French Professor Tran Quang Hai, a phonologic and traditional music expert at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France.
Under the guidance of professor Hai, Minh won the highest prize at the 2006 International Jew's Harp Competition in Amsterdam which he considered a stepping stone for him to bring the Jew’s harp to Vietnamese as well as international audiences.
After the competition, he was invited to perform on many stages worldwide.
Still, every rose has thorns.
His musical dream faced difficulties in 2007.
“I realized I could not just play the Jew’s harp and call on people to protect Vietnam’s musical heritage,” he said. “2007 was a year of crisis in my life, I could only perform once on one stage, and hardly got a second invitation. I only got five shows that year and earned only VND 3million.”
After 6 months, he realized it was not the life he expected.
Then, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel: the circus troupe Lang Toi.
Nhat Ly, the troupe’s manager, approached Minh and asked to use Minh’s music as background music for his show.
“Every member of this troupe works like there’s no tomorrow,” he said. “As for me, I work because I have no choice but music.”
Besides playing for the circus troupe, Minh plans to work with dancing, hip-hop and beat box groups, since he said without money and audiences, the Jew’s harp would die.
Since then, Minh has appeared in over 100 performances with Lang Toi all over the world.
In April, Minh and dancer Tung Phuong enchanted Hanoi audiences with their Jew’s harp and break dance performance.
He will perform in America next year.
