Vietnamese Ca Tru village always admires her talent, enthusiasm and passion for Ca tru. Although she is a Director of a company specialized in construction materials and interior furniture and located in Bich Cau Street, Dong Da District, she always loves and spends time for Ca Tru. She is Meritorious Artist Van Mai.
Meritorious Artist Van Mai in a Ca Tru performance
Her love with Ca Tru has originated from her listening to music disc performed by Artisan Quach Thi Ho. Then, she bought a series of Ca Tru discs and learnt herself and found the Ca Tru songstresss to improve skills. Van Mai practiced different Ca Tru songs hard but she still continued to practice patiently and passionately.
Van Mai was born into a family without anyone to follow the arts. But her native place is in Dong Hung, Thai Binh – the cradle of Cheo (traditional opera). She has been endowed with clear, echoing and sweet voice. She can sing a lot of melodies and genres, even the ones that anyone hardly sings like Non mai hồng hạnh melody. After 10 years of working hard, singing and learning to beat at any time and everywhere, she has become a famous songstress of Vietnamese Ca Tru village and the best songstress of Hanoi UNESCO Ca Tru Club. When studying to sing Ca Tru songs, Van Mai had difficulties in singing unaccompanied, she convinced her husband to learn how to play music instrument to accompany her Ca Tru singing. Loving his wife, Mr. Tran Van Truc learned to play Dan Day (three-string lute). After that, they have practiced together. Mr. Truc attended many Ca Tru Festivals and won many awards. He is being recommended for excellent artisan.
In the practice of singing and performance, Meritorious Artist Van Mai also simultaneously collected tapes and discs of the famous Ca trù artisans such as Mrs. Dinh Thi Ban, Mrs. Dinh Thi Hao (Mrs. Chau Doanh), and Mrs. Chu. Thi Nam, Mrs. Chu Thi Bon, and Ms. Ba Thinh … These tapes and discs were recorded in 1930 – 1945.
After nearly 20 years of her Ca Tru singing, Meritorious Artist Van Mai has known to sing nearly 30 different genres of Ca trù such as: Dâng hương, thét nhạc, hát nói, gửi thư, hát ru, hát nói, hát mưỡu… Her voice is becoming more and more skillful, smooth and echoing that no songstress can achieve. Not only does she conquer the listeners but she is also appreciated by the experts for her restoration of “Non mai hồng hạnh” song which has been lost for 70 years. This song is very important in the Ca Tru ancestor worship ceremony “Mãn đào hoa Công chúa” and difficult and it requires techniques and good voice. In 2011, Van Mai was also awarded many prizes and certificates of merit in the following years. She was conferred a title of Folk Artist in 2012 and a title of Meritorious Artist in 2015.
Meritorious Artist Van Mai and her husband in a performance
In the role of Chairman of Ca trù club, artisan Van Mai and her husband invested in equipment, performance costumes and a small stage in Bich Cau Temple in Cat Linh Street to perform Ca Tru for foreign tourists and those who love this kind of theater on every Saturday night. Also, artisan Van Mai also spends her time opening a Ca trù teaching class free of charge for young people at Bich Cau temple on every Sunday morning and teaching in many other provinces such as Thai Binh, Bac Ninh and Hai Duong. She said that the reason that Ca trù has many lost melodies is that orally transmitting and only teaching Ca Tru to children and grandchildren in the family. It is necessary to teach many people, regardless of their relatives to develop Ca trù and have next generation. For over the past 5 years, Meritorious Artist Van Mai has opened tens of free Ca trù classes on Sunday mornings and trained tens of the songstresses who even became famous ones like Ha Phuong awarded Consolation Prize in Hanoi Ca Tru Young Talent Festival. Other students who have not been successful still understand more about Ca Tru and love Ca Tru thank to her training. Van Mai said “I love Ca tru and want to convey that love to everyone and maintain the Ca tru space in the heart of Hanoi.
Thanh Quy