Lecturer at the National Music Academy Pham Thi Hue has been a dedicated ca tru fan for many years. She founded the Thang Long Ca tru Club on Giang Van Minh Street, Hanoi. The club performs at most weekends and helps train young people to learn the art.One rising star at the club is secondary school student Doan Linh Huong. “The more I hear ca tru, the more I like it,” she says. “Whenever I listen to the phach (castanets), I feel the past coming back to life. I want to learn as much as I can from the teachers here and become a master myself.”
It’s a similar story in the centre of Vietnam, in Ha Tinh Province’s Nghi Xuan District. The area is home to two ca tru clubs: Co Dam and Nguyen Cong Tru.
The centres offer free lessons on ca tru and dan day (a distant cousin of the guitar with a long neck and three strings). The music has been included in pre-school, primary and high school syllabi since 1998 as part of a project to preserve traditional arts through classes and social events.
The schools don’t just teach ca tru but also other types of traditional folk songs like hat vi (work songs), says Nguyen Hai Nam, director of the district cultural centre. “First, teachers are trained by artists and specialists, then they are ready to pass the skills on to their students,” says Nam.
“A lot of teachers admitted they were sceptical about the project at first,” he says. “They weren’t sure they could sing well enough and help their students learn the folk songs.” But that was soon dispelled when the teachers saw how enthusiastic their students were, he adds. The project also includes annual folk song contests for students and teachers in the province.
The northern province of Hai Duong also includes ca tru on the school timetable and the province hosted the national ca tru festival in 2007. The top prize went to 18-year-old student Cao Thi Phuong Anh. Her sweet voice and a song composed by Nguyen Cong Tru won the heart of the jury.
“Learning ca tru at school is really good for us,” Anh says. “It teaches us about our culture and gives us the chance to learn from people who know a lot about it.” Anh began to learn ca tru when she was eight and took to it immediately. “I live in Nghi Xuan District, where ca tru originally came from, so maybe that’s why I find it so easy,” Anh says.
Anh is a member of two clubs in Nghi Xuan District run by Director Nam including Nguyen Cong Tru and Co Dam. She performs ca tru every Saturday and teaches ca tru classes to younger students.
Free classes give universal access to the traditional art but more needs to be done to gain public interest, Nam says. “Authorities need to bring the arts closer to the people, not just ca tru. More traditional arts should be restored and given publicity.” Despite efforts to promote and preserve ca tru, the Music Institute says there are only 17 veteran performers left in the country. If numbers continue to fall, ca tru runs the risk of disappearing into the history books.
It’s almost crunch time for one of Vietnam’s most treasured cultural traditions ca tru, as researchers try to get UNESCO to give the ceremonial songs official recognition as intangible cultural heritage. Experts from the Music Institute, under the National Academy of Music, have until March, 2009 to submit a background of ca tru to UNESCO. Musician Dang Hoanh Loan from the institute is on the case.
“I believe ca tru should be taught at university,” he says. “Ca tru is not valuable simply as a genre of music, it’s also an important part of Vietnamese tradition and culture.” “We need to send UNESCO a report, a photo album and a documentary film featuring performances of ca tru over the last few generations. Our report will include a list of well-known artists, development of young artists, activities involving ca tru last year and the restoration of ca tru.”
UNESCO is also giving Vietnam money to help preserve the art.