The Voyager's last port of call is breathtaking Halong Bay, Vietnam.
In this, the fifth and final episode of The HISTORY Channel's Around The World With Voyager, I travel to the buzzing capital city of Hanoi where I meet Mỹ Linh, one of the nation's foremost musical talents.
Mỹ Linh’s beautiful voice has captivated hearts across Vietnam and beyond. She is one of the country's most recognizable performers, as well as a musical ambassador to the world, having performed concerts throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Mỹ Linh’s career as a musical artist and performer. Together we celebrate this remarkable milestone by exploring the city she has called home her entire life.
Born into a working class family at the end of the Vietnam War, Mỹ Linh brings me to meet her mother in the old Hanoi neighbourhood where she grew-up. As she recalls her formative years, we stroll down a memory lane dotted with traditional snacks, old limestone walls and bicycles in narrow lanes. Mỹ Linh’s late father has been a great inspiration to her, and to honour him I decide to photograph Mỹ Linh and her mother together holding a
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portrait of Mỹ Linh as a little girl in the arms of her loving father. Here, Mỹ Linh also comes face-to-face with her childhood inspiration and the revisits traditional Vietnamese music of her youth.
Mỹ Linh’s formidable musical talent was evident from her teenage years. In 1991, she was named Best High School Student Singer and Best Singer in a Pop Band. These awards were a sign of success to come and, when she scored first on her entrance exam, Mỹ Linh enrolled in the prestigious Hanoi Conservatory of Music. To date, she has released more than ten albums and, in 2006, her “Chat Với Mozart”, an innovative fusion of Vietnamese and classical Western music, was named Album of the Year. Ever grateful for her successes, Mỹ Linh brings me to the Hai Ba Trung Pagoda where she continues to keep in touch with her spiritual side. Together we make a dramatic portrait of her in prayer inside the beautiful Buddhist temple.
Mỹ Linh then escorts me to Long Bien Bridge to introduce me to her husband, acclaimed Vietnamese composer-producer Anh Quân. Long Bien Bridge is significant as it's where the couple -- now parents to two children, as well as Anh Quân's daughter from an earlier marriage -- shared their first date on the back of a scooter many years ago. I capture them, perched on a vintage Vespa, as they recreate the romance of that first date.
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From here, Mỹ Linh invites me to her home in the Hanoi countryside. It is here that Mỹ Linh and Anh Quân continue to record her bestselling albums together in their state-of-the-art recording studio and where I create a series of photographs of Mỹ Linh singing one of her many hit songs.
Mỹ Linh has dedicated her entire career to the pursuit of excellence. Her styles range from opera and classical music to R&B, soul, funk and pop. Naming the late Whitney Houston as one of her influences, fittingly Mỹ Linh herself is renowned as one of Vietnam’s "Four Divas". To celebrate her life in music, I decide to make my final portrait of Mỹ Linh performing on the stage at the iconic Hanoi Opera House, one of the city’s historic musical landmarks.
To experience Mỹ Linh's journey through my lens, catch the fifth and final episode of Around The World With Voyager, which premieres on Monday 4 March at 11pm on HISTORY and HISTORY HD.
Watch promotional trailers for the first, second, third and fourth episodes where I meet and photograph chef Sean Anson Xu (徐安昇) in Taipei, action star and movie director/producer Stephen Fung Tak-Lun (馮德倫) in Hong Kong, film director Brillante Mendoza in Manila and fashion designer Raghavendra Rathore in Jodhpur.
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