Professor Tran Van Khe passes away at 94

Professor Tran Van Khe, Ph.D, the leading musicologist in Vietnam, passed away on the morning of June 24 in Ho Chi Minh City at 94.
 

In spite of elderly health issues, he continued to make wholehearted contributions to traditional music and systemise traditional music documents for future generations.

Khe was born in 1921 in Vinh Kim village, My Tho province (now Tien Giang province). He could play the ‘dan kim’ (a two-stringed traditional Vietnamese musical instrument) at 6, the ‘dan co’ (a sort of Vietnamese traditional musical instrument like a vertical violin with two strings) at 8, and the ‘dan tranh’ (16-string zither) and drums at 12.

He joined the army during the resistant war against French colonialism and went to France to study in 1949. In 1958 he was the first Vietnamese person to earn a Ph.D. of Musicology with his thesis on Vietnamese traditional music. He was a professor at the Sorbonne and an honourary member of the International Music Council, under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. He was a seasoned academic and teacher of traditional music, contributing to promoting Vietnamese music and culture around the world.

After five decades of studying and teaching in France, he returned to the motherland in 2006 to continue his cause of studying and teaching traditional music in Vietnam. He presented Ho Chi Minh City with 420 precious artifacts, including many traditional musical instrument and documents. He received a house from the Government at 32 Huynh Dinh Hai Street, Binh Thanh district, Ho Chi Minh City, where traditional musical events were regularly held.

In spite of elderly health issues, he continued to make wholehearted contributions to traditional music and systemise traditional music documents for future generations.

(Source: nhandan.org.vn)