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| People’s Artist Pham Quy Duong died aged 75
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Pham Quy Duong, the nation’s first opera singer and first
vocal coach at the Vietnam National Academy of Music, died on Tuesday aged 75
after ten years of fighting a kidney disease.
Born in 1936 in Hai
Duong Province,
Duong devoted his life to Vietnamese revolutionary music, a genre that helped
inspire soldiers to fight against invaders.
He did not have a professional musical education background
but with an inborn talent of singing, he was chosen by Russian music experts to
perform the classic opera ‘Epghenhi Onhegin’ by Tchaikovsky at Hanoi Opera
House when they staged the opera for the first time in 1960. Thus he became the
nation’s first opera singer.
During wartime, everlasting revolutionary songs such as Tinh
Ca (Love Song) by Hoang Viet, Tinh Em (My Love) by Huy Du and Nguyen Nhung’s
Bai Ca Ben Canh Vong (The Song by the Hammock) through Duong’s velvet vocals
motivated soldiers on the battlefield. He sang on the radio but also gave his
support by singing on the battlefield.
After the revolution wars Duong was selected to study vocal
music in Bulgaria
from 1979 to 1983 and then became the first vocal instructor at the Hanoi
Conservatory of Music. Well-known artists including Bich Viet, Trung Duc and
Hoang Quy were among his students.
The combination between international classical vocal music
technique with the traditional Vietnamese folk style made him famous and his
influence is still felt on Thursday.
He also was very successful when singing pre-war songs by
composer Van Cao and other world famous love songs.
Together with Tran Hieu and Trung Kien, Duong formed 3C
(three old men) to sing revolution music and western love songs until he
contracted the kidney disease.
He received the title ‘People’s Artist’ in 1993. Memorial
services will be held at the funeral house of the Ministry of Defense in Hanoi.