HÀ NỘI — Five international guitarists will perform at the Việt Nam International Finger-Style Guitar Festival at the Việt Nam Youth Theatre on August 17.

Guitarists from mainland China, Japan and Taiwan are set to play.

“The festival celebrates the fifth year in Việt Nam and we want to introduce little Feng E from Taiwan,” said the festival's organiser Đỗ Dương Tùng.

“I hope his performance will inspire Vietnamese young audiences about guitar.”

At the age of 12, E was one of the finalists at the Asia’s Got Talent Season Two in 2017. He has played the ukulele since the age of five.

As a child, E’s writing was not beautiful so his father asked him playing the instrument to make his fingers more flexible.

After a year, he started posted covers on YouTube of pieces by The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Guns N’ Roses and Slash.

Last year, one of his viral video playing Australian guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel’s Classical Gas caught American TV host Ellen DeGeneres’s attention and she invited him to her show in Los Angeles.

He also appeared on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show in February this year.

The festival is the first time Chinese CK Chen and Ivan Song will perform in Việt Nam.

Chen’s piece Untitled is very popular in the Vietnamese fingerstyle community. He has lectured about the style at Fenghua Art College and written two books about advanced fingerstyle.

Song presented a talk on fingerstyle guitar at TEDx in China and is the ambassador for South Korean guitar brand Crafter.

Meanwhile, Japanese artists Masa Sumide and Kanaho have performed in the festival several times over the last four years.

Fingerstyle guitar, a unique genre from the US, has become popular in Việt Nam in recent years. The festival has been held annually in Asian countries since 2010 and in Việt Nam since 2015. 

“We hope to attract more Vietnamese audiences to fingerstyle guitar as well as bring this art closer to the public, contributing to the development of a cultural environment in the community,” Tùng said.

The one-night concert will begin at 8pm at the Youth Theatre, 11 Ngô Thì Nhậm, Hà Nội. Please call 0943227513 for ticket information. — VNS