The Vietnamese Traditional New Year 2014- the Year of the Horse is celebrated for the first time ever in Greece with 15-member musical troupe from Vietnam

At the invitation by the Embassy of Viet Nam in Greece, a 15-member musical troupe from Viet Nam, including musicians, dancers and singers, will visit and perform Vietnamese traditional, modern and contemporary as well as popular Hellenic music, using Vietnamese traditional musical instruments.

The performance will be held on January 20th 2014, at 20:00, at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation. Limited number of tickets is available for the audience

The cultural event – first ever performed by stage actors and actresses from Vietnam – is organized to celebrate the Vietnamese Traditional New Year 2014– the Year of the Horse and to welcome the official launching of the Hellenic- Vietnamese Business Council.

SELECTED TRADITIONAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF VIET NAM

The “đàn bầu” (monochord):
“Ðàn bầu” consists of a long piece of wood, on which is stretched a silk or brass string, which is fastened at one end to a peg and at the other to a flexible bamboo plate. The string is passed repeatedly through an open dried gourd as sound box. Although having only one string, it can emit all the sounds in the pentatonic scale. The eight notes of Vietnamese music give modulations of greater amplitudes than those obtained by any other single-stringed instrument in the world. Today, this is made very carefully to ensure aesthetic and sound quality.

The đàn tranh: It is a plucked zitherof Viet Nam. It has a wooden body and steel strings, each of which is supported by a bridge in the shape of an inverted “V.” The đàn tranh can be used either as a solo instrument, or as one of many to accompany singer/s. The đàn tranh originally had 16 strings and has gained massive popularity and become the most preferred form of the instrument used throughout Vietnam.

The đàn Tam Thập Lục: It’s been known as the traditional Vietnamese plucked, stringed instrument with a hammered dulcimer with 36 metal strings. It is used in various genres of traditional music and drama, as well as in modernized traditional music.

The T’rung is a traditional bamboo xylophone used by the Jarai ethnic people and Bahnar people in Viet Nam’s Central Highlands. More complicated developments of the Jarai and Bahnar’s xylophone have becomes used in Vietnamese traditional music ensembles representing the music of the highland minorities.

The K’lông pút – set of bamboo tubes; hands are clapped near ends of tubes to produce musical tones.

The K’ni is a fiddle like instrument used of the Jarai ethnic people in Viet Nam. The term is the common word for fiddle in the Jarai language. It is a bowed chordophone which uses the musician’s mouth as a resonator which enables the instrument to imitate certain qualities found in vocal music.

The đàn nhị (two-stringed fiddle with hardwood body) is a Vietnamese bowed string instrument with two strings. Its sound box is generally covered on one end with snakeskin.