One of the privileges of being able to write about a talent like Phi Nhung is the opportunity to introduce her music to those who aren’t familiar with her work. That includes younger Vietnamese people both within Vietnam and overseas who have yet to discover her powerful voice and loving character. It also includes non-Vietnamese listeners who appreciate the genres she performed.
Those of us working on this book who are not from Vietnam have deepened our appreciation for Nhung’s music as well as for the Vietnamese bolero and cai luong styles. As a former student of ethnomusicology, co-author Michael Arnold has grown to love the metre and decoration of Vietnamese opera through Nhung’s singing; as a singer of classical Indian music (which Nhung could also perform), editor Sakshi Shioramwar was entranced by the beauty of Phi Nhung’s soulful singing style.
While we count down to the release of “An Emissary from Heaven”, fans both old and new are encouraged to take the time to explore Phi Nhung’s oeuvre, sharing in celebrating the life of the singer who sacrificed everything for Vietnam during the painful Covid era in this month, just one year ago.
In honour of her music, the ten chapters of our book are each named after one of Phi Nhung’s songs. We’ve prepared a Youtube playlist here (https://youtube.com/playlist…) of those ten songs referenced in her biography chapter titles. We welcome all to enjoy these songs once more and listen carefully to appreciate Nhung’s joy of singing and concealed heartache.