Pham Duy visits Vietnam

Singer composer Pham Duy returned to Vietnam for the tenth time since 2000, spending the Tet holidays in his hometown of Hanoi. Duy, now 85, said he would like to come back to spend the remainder of his life in Vietnam with his relatives. If allowed to do so, he would then travel around the country, writing songs about the homeland and seeking permission to perform. He is currently asking Vietnamese authorities to approve nine of his old songs to be performed in Vietnam. These were five composed during the war against the French and four other poetic songs. Altogether he has composed some 900 songs during his lifetime, 300 of them over the last 30 years of his life in the United States. He first became known to the West in the 1960s for his popularization of Vietnamese folk songs. The Vietnamese government limits and strictly watches returning trips and performances of Vietnamese artists from abroad, as well as the diffusion of their works within the country. (Vietnam News Briefs, Feb. 15).