Vietnamese artists on juries of int’l contests

Some international cultural-arts contests have recently invited Vietnamese artists to join their juries.

Pianist Dang Thai Son.

Top of the list must be People’s Artist, pianist Dang Thai Son, who was the youngest juryman at a music contest named after Chopin in Poland. He was recently the chief juryman of the International Sviatoslav Richter Piano Contest.

Dang Thai Son was also both a juryman and piano performer at the Opening Gala Concert of the 15^th Chopin contest in Warsaw.

“Being invited to be a juryman at the Chopin contest proves that Dang Thai Son is highly respected by international experts,” commented People’s Artist, musician Trong Bang.

Next year, Dang Thai Son will be one of the 12 jurymembers at the International Concours Contest in Poland, the largest contest so far in the history of the Chopin councours.

Movie critic Ngo PhuongLan

Director Dang Nhat Minh

Director Tran Anh Hung

In movies, besides movie critic Ngo Phuong Lan, there are two Vietnamese who have been invited to be jurymembers at international film festivals: People’s Artist, director Dang Nhat Minh with the Calovivary Film Festival in the Czech Republic and actress Do Hai Yen with the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.

Overseas Vietnamese film director Tran Viet hung was a juryman at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996. Yet, some say that the world movie industry is inviting famous Asian faces just to polish the names of film festivals.

Actress Do Hai Yen

Executive Director of Elite Vietnam, Thuy Nga, said that there has never been a Vietnamese contestant able to make a presentation in such good, attractive English at an international beauty contest as Nguyen Vu Ha Anh, so Ha Anh was invited to join the jury of Miss Earth 2007, but she couldn’t take part.

Supermodel Tien Doan, after being crowned Mister International 2008, said that he would be a juryman of the Miss and Mister Venezuela. Previously, Thuy Tran, a Vietnamese-American, was a member of the jury of the qualifier round of 56^th Miss Universe Mexico.

Mister International 2008 Tien Doan

As a member of the jury of the annual Asian Film Festival in India, film critic Ngo Phuong Lan commented about the interrelation between the movie industries of Vietnam and Asian countries: “Some countries that had no fame for movies in the past have surpassed Vietnam very quickly”.

However, sometimes it is not good to be a jurymember in international contests. Returning from the contest to choose an official song of ASEAN, conductor Pham Hong Hai accused the chief juryman, a Thai, of being partial.

Anyways, it is a good thing to have Vietnamese as members of juries of international contests. These people will get a comprehensive view of the development of each field to contribute useful ideas to Vietnamese arts.

VietNamNet/PN