In 1986, Vietnam rapidly expanded its diplomatic relations with many countries, after the country embarked on the renewal process and the demand for national music performances abroad was growing.

The Ba Pho family, comprises four members who are all traditional music players. Ba Pho and his wife are staff of the Central Music and Dance Ensemble while Tuan Tu - his wife’s brother - is a music lecturer in Hue music and Ba Nha - his son - a moon guitar player.

Born in 1976 into a musical family, at the age of eight, Ba Nha won his first prize at an international contest for traditional music. At the age of 15, he was admitted to the Hanoi Music Conservatory and became the youngest music university graduate ever in Vietnam.

In 1969, Ba Pho accompanied delegates attending the Paris Conference to end the war in South Vietnam as an art performer. Ba Pho has been dubbed as “the King of the Moon Guitar”.

The Ba Pho music band was created in 1987 as an affiliate to the Central Song and Dance Ensemble.

In 1989, the Ba Pho band participated in the National Music Festival with 12 entries and won the second prize. Following the music festival, his band produced an album with Vietnam TV to send to 42 Vietnamese Embassies to play during ceremonies and festivals.

The Ba Pho band’s fame has now been wide spread. After attending a performance by the Ba Pho band, Rubjib Sanyal, a member of the US Education Council, wondered if the Ba Pho music band was a treasure of Vietnamese traditional music.

The Ba Pho band has traveled extensively inside and outside Vietnam. On a tour of Japan, the band performed in 25 cities and won thunderous applause from the audience.  More recently, in August 2005, the band attended a Jazz festival in Toroton, Italy. The sound generated by the band seemed to take the souls of many of the audience on a magical journey. Many of them stayed after the performance to chat with the band. For overseas Vietnamese, the sound of traditional musical instruments brings them back to the homeland and many could not hold back the tears. It helped make them feel proud of the Vietnamese nation.

For Ba Pho, to win the hearts and minds of the audience, the band must be unique from other bands. This requires all band members to work harder in order to further conquer audiences.

Ba Pho has successfully brought the T’rung music from the Central Highlands to the delta and turned the T’rung instrument, which is normally in the shape of a Rong house of the Central Highlands, into the shape of a one pillar pagoda. He has also made many renovations to bring traditional instruments to his performances, including a stone guitar, K’long put guitar, bamboo gong guitar and Luu guitar.

At present, Ba Pho is trying to complete a training manual on how to play 210 traditional Vietnamese musical instruments. He is also upgrading his home to display different traditional musical instruments and expects to open the show to the public some time this year.

By Thanh Van