It’s difficult to write a sustained and serious biography of Trịnh Công Sơn, even one about only one portion of his life. One would need primary materials: documents, private correspondence, business correspondence, interviews, etc. How many such documents still exist? How can one access those that exist? I still hold out the hope for such a biography, but the prospects aren’t that great twenty-five years after his death.
Continue reading “Elevating Trịnh Công Sơn studies: Part 3”
They are in chronological order:
- “Kinh hòa bình” [Peace Prayer] (1960) by Kim Long
- “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” (1967) by Sebastian Temple
- “Peace Prayer” (1976) by John Foley, SJ
On April 18, I had the pleasure of participating in the day-long conference about Digitizing Vietnam (DVN) at Columbia University. John Phan, its executive director, and other DVN folks did a terrific job putting it together. The focus was digital humanities and AI regarding the present and future of Vietnam studies. By the end of the day, I wasn’t alone in feeling the vibes that this project was something of a paradigm shift.
Continue reading “Elevating Trịnh Công Sơn studies: Part 1”
Several years ago, Pierre Long Tang, then a Pepperdine faculty, told me with a touch of despair that undergraduates couldn’t listen to Bruckner because his symphonies are too complex and too long for their attention span. I’d imagine they felt somewhat the same about Mahler. We live in an age of minuets and scherzos apt for TikTok, not oratorios and concertos. And certainly not symphonies from late romanticism that rack up an hour’s time on average.
Continue reading “Commute listening: Mahler’s first five symphonies”
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