HÀ NỘI — Three female guitarists from the US, South Korea and Japan will perform tomorrow at the Việt Nam Youth Theatre in Hà Nội.

The All Female Guitar Night with Christie Lenee, Kanaho and Erica Cho, is part of the International Fingerstyle Guitar Festival launched for the first time in 2016 in Asia. This year the festival will include 18 concerts in eight Asian countries. 

"The concert will certainly be a very inspirational event for female guitar players and musicians in Việt Nam," said Đỗ Dương Tùng of the Việt Nam Fingerstyle Organisation, one of the organisers of the Hà Nội concert. "This is an opportunity for Vietnamese audiences to enjoy the special fingerstyle guitar." The choice of an all-female ensemble also marks International Women’s Day this month.

Lenee came to music in an unusual way. She refused lessons at first, fearing they would be too academic. Instead, she played along to albums and learned by ear. She subsequently attended the University of South Florida, studying jazz guitar performance and classical music composition. 

Guitarist Kanaho started learning acoustic guitar at the age of 12 from her favourite music in a television series. One year later, she started learning solo fingerstyle guitar and was deeply impressed by veteran artists Massaaki Kishibe and Kotaro Oshio. By the age of 15 she had already started writing re-arrangements and compositions of her own and was chosen and performed in the Sound Messe 2012 Seaside Stage audition. 

She performed on stage of the first time in 2011 and her first solo concert was in 2013. One of her famous video clips was Beauty and the Beast and The Water Is Wide with her own arrangements. She performed at the first All Female Guitar Night last year and at the International Fingerstyle Guitar Festival 2014 and 2015. 

Cho is an emerging fingerstyle guitar artist in Korea. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil she started playing fingerstyle in 2011 and her compositions and arrangements are highly appreciated on YouTube. She also had solo and duet performances at the International Finger-Style Guitar Festival 2016.

"I’m eager to perform with the two great guitarists Lenee and Kanaho. It will be fun," said Cho. 

After an opening concert on March 18 in Malaysia, the concert continues to Singapore, Việt Nam, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and will finish on April 16 in Japan. 

The concert starts at 8pm at 11 Ngô Thì Nhậm Street. For ticket information call 0964380014. — VNS