The recording project Singing Our Lives—A Bahnar Music Collection is a cultural revitalization project that seeks to preserve the music and culture of the Bahnar (or Ba-Na) people of the central highlands of Vietnam. Led by Dr. K. David Harrison and Dr. Tran Hoai and funded by a grant from the Center for Environmental Intelligence at VinUniversity, the project includes 12 songs performed and collected in Kon Tum province by Y Blưn, A Biu, and other villagers accompanied by a variety of instruments, including pitched gongs, chimes, and guitar. Published initially as a YouTube playlist with video descriptions in Vietnamese and English, the project may also appear in the future as a physical release. The primary audiences are Bahnar communities; Vietnamese publics; and scholars of music, folklore, and cultural heritage.There are relatively few published recordings of Bahnar language and music, making this a significant contribution for scholars of Vietnamese highlands music and culture. In addition, the project poses a model for cultural revitalization that will interest anyone involved in cultural sustainability initiatives. The project's funder, VinUniversity, was appointed the UNESCO Chair for research on the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, the first UNESCO Chair in Vietnam; the project is thus part of an effort that recognizes the intersections of language, culture, and the environment for sustainability. The cooperative nature of the project between Bahnar cultural practitioners, ethnomusicologists, linguists, and UNESCO, with an environmental emphasis, will be especially interesting for those working in cultural heritage and sustainability.Two musicians and instrument collectors form the foundation of the project: retired teacher Y Blưn and artist A Biu. Y Blưn collected five of the 12 songs and performs four of them. Y Blưn is an educator actively working to pass Bahnar music on to the rising generation. The video descriptions state that “she gathered elementary and middle school students from her village to teach and transmit the skills of playing gongs, dancing xoang, and performing traditional Bahnar musical pieces.” One song in particular demonstrates Y Blưn's impact as an educator: Her student Y Ri Lăng performs the lullaby “Lung Oh” in a sweet, clear voice. Y Blưn's song selections discuss themes like romantic love, family activities, festivals, harvests, and domestic work.In contrast, A Biu, who collected and performed six songs in the collection, reinterprets Bahnar traditional tunes with modern influences. Notably, he performs two selections on guitar. “Dak Bla” describes the flowers flourishing on the riverbank, a metaphor for the Bahnar people themselves and the shifting landscape (UNESCO Chair Vietnam: Environmental Leadership, A Biu—Đăk Bla (Sông Đăk Bla), nghệ sĩ Ba Na | Đăk Bla River, Bahnar song English subtitles, YouTube video, April 9, 2025, 03:18 min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB0DAfdKiwM). “Sỡangon tơ blah” describes the impact of the conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s on the environment and all living things (UNESCO Chair Vietnam: Environmental Leadership, A Biu—Sỡangon tơ blah (Nỗi buồn chiến tranh) nghệ sĩ Ba Na | The Sorrow of War, BAHNAR artistENG, YouTube video, April 21, 2025, 04:33 min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuoGYc46uPM). Video recordings of these two songs, which include descriptions and translations by A Biu, garnered 30,000 and 20,000 views on YouTube in their first week of publication, respectively, and are discussed here because of the context they provide to the sound recordings. Across his contributions, A Biu emphasizes the changes to the environment and society during his lifetime. While Y Blưn's song selections focus on domestic issues, romance, and harvest, A Biu's songs include themes like war, conflict, and advice from elders to young men.One song, “Hra Koop,” is a field recording of a church service, with the performance credited to the villagers of Kon Ktu. According to the video description, Bahnar hymns called “Hra Khoop” were composed by Bahnar Catholic church workers in the 1960s in an attempt to bring more Indigenous cultural influence into Catholic church services. Although 12 tracks can hardly represent all the creative musical expressions of a single region or genre, the team made an effort to include songs with a range of contexts and subjects. Particularly evident is the difference in repertoire between the two main song collectors, perhaps reflecting a gender divide.As the association with UNESCO indicates, the main purpose of these recordings is cultural preservation. However, this is not salvage ethnography but is instead an active revitalization and transmission effort intended to promote cultural traditions, language, and history among the Bahnar people themselves and the Vietnamese more generally. That emphasis is audible in the intimate recordings of the performers, whose creative control in the song selection and performance is palpable.The recordings offer notable strengths. Given the limited number and scope of previous published recordings of Bahnar music, this collection is a significant update in repertoire and ease of access. For example, Smithsonian Folkways’ 1965 Music of Vietnam (https://folkways.si.edu/music-of-vietnam/world/album/smithsonian) includes three tracks of Bahnar music, all under 1.5 minutes in length and only accompanied by general descriptions. A more recent album released by Sublime Frequencies (https://sublime-frequencies.bandcamp.com/album/music-of-the-bahnar-people-from-the-central-highlands-of-vietnam) includes a wider range of instruments and genres recorded in the early-mid 2000s, such as a bamboo zither and a bamboo fiddle with mouth resonator (Various Artists, Music of the Bahnar People from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, 2016). Singing Our Lives feels more personal than either of these recordings, since listeners hear the music through the interpretations of two main contributors, becoming familiar with their voices and style. Singing Our Lives also prioritizes descriptions and translations in Vietnamese as well as English, further demonstrating the focus on cultural and linguistic revitalization and local impact. Another distinct advantage for expanding the reach of the recordings and allowing for community engagement is that these are openly available on YouTube instead of only available through digital purchase or download.A few elements of the project could benefit from additional development. For example, impact could be further increased by providing complete lyrics for each song in the Bahnar language, full translations in Vietnamese and English, and additional information about the performers, instruments, and contexts of the performance. Indeed, the enthusiastic response to the affiliated videos demonstrates the initial impact of the recordings. In addition, cultural heritage practitioners and scholars may wish for additional information about the methodology behind the project, such as how the musicians were selected or locations identified for fieldwork. Overall, Singing Our Lives: A Bahnar Music Collection is a thoughtful and moving resource for the Bahnar people. It is also a valuable contribution for ethnomusicologists, folklore scholars, and practitioners interested in cultural revitalization and sustainability.
Andrea Decker (Thu,) studied this question.