Nguyen Dinh Chieu, the writer of the epic, was a Vietnamese poet renowned for his nationalist and anti-colonial writings against the French. 

June 30 would have been his 200th birthday.

Le Quy Duong, the show's general director, gathered numerous worldwide performers to spread the influence and popularity of Lục Vân Tiên, a famous epic by Chieu.

Swedish singer-songwriter Tamela Hedstrom admitted that when director Duong disclosed his plan to invite her to make a song inspired by the epic Lục Vân Tiên, she was a bit surprised because she was unfamiliar with it at the time.

However, she accepted the offer because she had previously met Duong at the 2020 Fujairah International Art Festival (UAE) and valued the chance to collaborate with him.

"Director Le Quy Duong told me about the renowned poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu and the poem Lục Vân Tiên, and we explored the possibility of performing an art programme in Chieu's honour," Tamela said. 

She also expressed her initial impression of Lục Vân Tiên as a beautiful and enthralling tale that advises everyone to overcome adversity.

The Swedish artist stated that she began reading Lục Vân Tiên in English and took note of all the wonderful features and messages that were included inside.

"A visual of the characters and other details popped into my head while I was reading. From there, the tunes just kept coming to me,” she recalled.

The female musician was then inspired to write a ballad after reading the famous Vietnamese epic and putting the fascinating details she gained into her lyrics.

She said: "This humanity story still has a place in Vietnamese literature after hundreds of years. Lục Vân Tiên is a piece that I feel everyone in the world can appreciate it if given the chance."

It's been announced that Tamela will be visiting Vietnam in celebration of Nguyen Dinh Chieu's 200th birthday in southern province of Ben Tre. She believes this will afford her the chance to converse with historians and learn more about Vietnamese epics.

French percussionist Dominique Henry Probst has known director Duong since the late 1990s when they collaborated on the contemporary opera Motherland.

The French artist stated that he first heard the blind poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu and his work Lục Vân Tiên through Duong. Later, he also discovered a magnificent copy of Lục Vân Tiên published by the French School of the Far East (École française d'Extrême-Orient), in Paris.

"I read this tale with intrigue and fascination because it's entrenched in tradition and full of innocent sentiments, while also emanating deep philosophical ideas about human emotions," he said.

The pure and persistent love of the two main characters, Kiều Nguyệt Nga and Lục Vân Tiên, deeply moved Dominique. He decided to compose the Lamentation of Nguyệt Nga, a chamber piece in the European style.

The composition opens with a solo percussion prelude performed by Dominique, followed by a Vietnamese-speaking part. Artist My Dung will perform the piano part before switching to the performance in French and English by two female vocalists. Artist Tran Vuong Thach serves as the conductor.

Dominique regards his return to Vietnam as a tremendous honour and feels that the worth of Lục Vân Tiên is universal and accessible in many languages. 

Source: Vietnam News