Anthropology Seminar: Professor Lonán Ó Briain (Uni of Nottingham)

Valuing Diversity in the Music of Nguyên Lê and Ngô Hồng Quang

In mainland Southeast Asia, one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse regions of the world, ethnicity maps onto cultural, social and economic inequalities which underpin the fabric of society. Here, scholars have been critical of cultural appropriation from minority communities who are marginalised, especially when positioned alongside longstanding inequalities and interethnic discontent (e.g., Ó Briain 2018). This presentation shifts focus to the cultural borrowers to understand how musical sounds and systems acquire new meaning and value as they move from one community to another (after Taylor 2024). The 2017 album Hà Nội Duo, a collaboration between French jazz guitarist Nguyên Lê and Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist Ngô Hồng Quang, combines Vietnamese musical traditions and minority musical cultures with jazz fusion and other styles. In an attempt to untangle the nebulous transnational exchanges between overseas Vietnamese, middle-class Vietnamese, ethnic minority communities and others, I analyse the musical and cultural contexts of the album, consider the recent history of Vietnamese-centred musical exchanges, the musicians’ previous work, their creative collaboration and their subsequent promotional tours in Vietnam and Europe. I examine these interrelated strands of creative activity as frozen-in-time artefacts, musical distillations of social attitudes, beliefs and desires.

Host or Publisher Anthropology Research Seminar Series