Gilbert Artist-In-Residence: Vanessa Vo

Van-anh “Vanessa” Vo’s smooth fingers run through the sixteen steel strings of the traditional Vietnamese instrument the dan tranh zither. A beautiful melody rings in the concert hall. Slowly, she lifts her fingers from the traditional Vietnamese instrument as the crowd, with smiles across their faces, claps and claps.The Phillips Exeter Academy Music Department is fortunate to have had Vo, an Emmy Award-winning artist and Academy Award nominee perform as part of the Gilbert Concert Series, on Friday Feb. 6, 2015. The Gilbert Concert Series, funded by Clint Gilbert for the past fifteen years, brings very high caliber artists to the Exeter community. One of its goals is to expose Exeter to a variety of professional music artists and styles.When searching for the next Gilbert Series performer, concert series manager Vanessa Holroyd said that Vo “seemed to be the perfect artist to bring to Exeter for the Gilbert Series in anticipation of [the chamber orchestra’s and concert choir’s] upcoming concert tour.” With the goal of the spring break tour being a “cultural exchange through music,” as music instructor, Rohan Smith said, “Vo will be able to introduce the students to Vietnamese traditional music, by rehearsing two traditional Vietnamese folk songs with us, as well as to the culture of Vietnam before cultural interaction and the spring break tour actually begins.”This spring break tour to Vietnam and Hong Kong will be the first international destinations the chamber orchestra and the concert choir will have toured. Coincidentally, the tour will fall during the 20th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam, which will allow for even more opportunities in performing both Western music and Vietnamese music.Because Vietnamese music contrasts from the type of music most student musicians are familiar with, Vo’s concert and advice will greatly aid the students before the spring break tour. Holroyd hopes that the students will gain an appreciation and understanding of traditional Vietnamese music. “By learning the two traditional folk songs,” she said, “I hope it will help prepare them for some of the cultural exchange experiences they will have on tour.”Instructor of music, Kristofer Johnson expects that Vo will make a big difference stylistically to how his group, the concert choir, sing the folk songs. “The melodies [of Vietnamese traditional music] are somewhat straightforward, but they are also contain a lot of range and require some slides, so it’s not like the sounds we usually make. I think once she gets here, all of this will happen,” Johnson said.Vo’s impact on the spring break trip will continue even after she finishes her performance. Smith said that the spring break tour group will also attend several workshops and collaborate on the performance of traditional Vietnamese music and folk songs in continuation from Vo’s contributions. “It’s going to be a really amazing chance to learn about a new musical tradition, a whole artistic world that is completely new to most of the people,” he said.Not only will this concert help the students attending the tour, but it will also benefit the community of Exeter and, according to Holroyd, “the community of the entire Seacoast region,” as there will not be a fee to hear Vo perform.Through Vo’s concert, Smith hopes that the community will gain a different perspective from “the musical world” of the West, which usually dominates our perceptions of music. He noted that not many people are exposed to the style of music Vo plays. “It’s really a different world.”Above all other goals, Vo’s concert aims to build on the purpose of the Gilbert Concert Series and expose students to this rare and unique style of music. “I’m really hoping people in our community will get curious about this,” Smith said. “One of the missions of being a musician is giving a sense of a different world to people because that’s what music does: it connects people.”