The Larang Duo

The Larang Duo was formed and made its debut in Berkeley 1999 upon the return of its members, Le Ngoc Chan and Anh Hien, after one year long of studying singing and research in the rural region of Bach Ninh, Vietnam, where the popular Quan Ho courtship singing tradition originated several hundred years ago.

As graduates of Indiana University, School of Music in Bloomington, both Le Ngoc Chan and Anh Hien have taught western classical music and non-western music at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Michigan State University, Wesleyan University, and Central Connecticut University. They have also performed solo and chamber music in Europe and North America. Le's original compositions have been performed by the Gina Buntz Dance Company (New York), Michhigan State University Symphony Orchestra (East Lansing, Michigan), and L'atelier des Musiques Contemporaines (Paris) among others.

Since 1995, Le Ngoc Chan and Anh Hien have made several research trips to Hanoi and Bac Ninh to study the changes in traditional music of Vietnam. Their research has been funded by many organizations and agencies including the Social Science Research Council, the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, the Fulbright Foundation, and most recently by the Asian Cultural Council. Since 1998, Chane Le and Anh Hien have devoted full effort in learning the real Quan Ho singing fearing that this form of singing tradition, with its peculiar vocal aesthetics and song style, may someday be altered so much as a result of Vietnam's institutionalization of folk traditions and increasing urbanization of rural regions, that it would be very difficult for music lovers to hear the singing in its most unadulterated form. They both had the opportunity to study with elderly singers of the last generation before 1945, as well as with currently well-known Quang Ho singers in the region.

As a tradition, Quan Ho singing is marked with highly charged, yet restrained, emotion and a special vocal technique called "bouncing grains." While popular Quan Ho songs nowadays display characteristics shared by many folk singing genres in the Northern Delta, such as trance singing (Hat Chau Van) or folk theather singing (Hat Cheo), older Quan Ho songs, such as La Rang, one of the two songs performed today, bear distinctive musical and textual features, which illuminate aspects of early agricultural life centering around fertility, crops, and forces of nature.

La Rang is considered the most fundamental tune in the Quan Ho singing practice. No one knows exactly what la rang means in today Vietnamese. Some scholars believe that the term may have come from ancient Vietnamese language (close to the Muong language); others think it may have some connection with the Chamic language of the Cham people. Le Ngoc Chan and Anh Hien have chosen Larang as a name for their duo partly because of its importance in the tradition.