Three-Mountain Pass

At the opening of this CD, the plucked strings that slide serenely from note to note are like a silken curtain opening on another world. The instrument is the Vietnamese dan tranh, a plucked zither that is much like the Japanese koto or Korean gayageum, although the bending and sliding of notes is much more marked in Vietnamese music, perhaps because of the tonal language.

Van-Anh Vanessa Vo was born in Hanoi, but since 2001 has been a resident of San Francisco, where she’s become a compelling ambassador for Vietnamese music. As well as dan tranh, she also plays the bowed dan bau, three of which are spectacularly featured in ‘Mourning’, her own composition lamenting the Vietnam War. By contrast ‘Three-Mountain Pass’ sets lyrics by an 18th century female poet to dan tranh and hang, while ‘Go Hunting’ is a finale for bamboo xylophone and percussion.

But the piece that will attract most attention is ‘Green River Delta’ featuring the Kronos Quartet and based on a composition by the wonderful Vietnamese lute player Kim Sinh. The textures spark and fly with Vo’s shimmering strings surrounded by cascades of bowed and plucked sounds. Vanessa Vo is the Wu Man of Vietnam.