Guitaris, Nguyen Thi Kim Chung appears in the public performance

Sitting pretty: Guitarist Kim Chung will perform at her fourth live show guitar recital, which will celebrate the 55th anniversary of the HCM City Music Conservatory’s founding. — VNS Photo

HCM CITY — It has been five years since guitar virtuoso Kim Chung performed on the stage.

The guitarist, whose full name is Nguyễn Thị Kim Chung, stayed idle for a long time because she was not eager to perform in public and was operating a candle-making factory.

She now spends most of her time lecturing her students at HCM City Music Conservatory and writing arrangements of her favourite music pieces to be performed at her fourth live show guitar recital, which will celebrate the 55th anniversary of the conservatory’s founding.

Besides classical pieces by Vivaldi and Rodrigo, the guitarist will also perform several Vietnamese songs arranged herself and by musician Phùng Tuấn Vũ.

She will be accompanied by the HCM City Symphony and Orchestra at the beginning of the concert and then will take the stage for a solo performance.

“I will play songs in which I can perform the tremolo technique. I have also decided to organise a live concert of guitar music each year to serve classical-music fans,” she said.

Three of her CDs of classical music for guitar sold 10,000 each, which is a resounding success in Việt Nam, where most buyers prefer albums by foreign musicians.

During the past five years, she ran a factory producing art candles named Angel Light in HCM City’s Tân Bình District. The factory, which had several huge orders from foreign clients, employed 40 workers.

But she has now returned to the guitar, which she began learning when she turned six years old.

Chung aims to sell 400 tickets to her concert. Her previous three concerts sold out. She is also planning a live show in Hà Nội after Tết (Lunar New Year holiday).

She enrolled in the HCM City Music Conservatory when she was 15 and was trained by musicians Bùi Thế Dũng and Phùng Tuấn Vũ.

She graduated from HCM City Music Conservatory in 1999 with merit level and was awarded a scholarship by the Spanish Agency for International Co-operation to study at the Madrid Royal Musical Conservatory.

At the school, she was trained by Professor Jose Luis Rodrigo, once a student of famous cellist Andres Segovia.

The guitar recital will be held at 8pm on Saturday at the music conservatory.

The concert takes place on the occasion of the Gala Guitar event, with the participation of more than 70 well-known guitarists from around the world, from today to next Monday at the music conservatory.

Vietnamese-Australian guitarist Lê Hoàng Minh, Japanese guitarist Kozo Tate, John Jiang from Taiwan and others musicians will play at the gala. — VNS