What did Trinh Cong Son's sister say when the young singer sang Trinh's songs in English?

(Dan Tri) - Singer Trinh Vinh Trinh, sister of musician Trinh Cong Son, was surprised when approached with the project of translating Trinh's music into many languages. She said she always supports the artistic creations of young people.

On the afternoon of October 24, in Hanoi, the music project Let's Love Jazz was launched to the public, with the participation of musician Trinh Cong Son's sister.

Lasting from October this year until the end of 2028, Let's Love Jazz is a project to renew and spread Trinh's music through jazz, fusion and acoustic arrangements, combined with translation into English, Japanese and Korean.

In this project, from singers to musicians, most of them are young generation Z (the generation born from 1996 to 2012) and all love jazz and Trinh's music.

Singer Trinh Vinh Trinh (left) shares about remaking Trinh Cong Son's music at the event (Photo: Organizer).

Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, singer Trinh Vinh Trinh, project consultant, said that Trinh Cong Son's music is profound and full of meaning, even when performed in Vietnamese it is not easy to fully understand.

Therefore, the important thing is not the language, but the singer's sincere feelings and emotions. Only then can Trinh's music truly touch the listener's heart.

“I think this is a difficult project that young people have done carefully and seriously. Jazz is a difficult genre, a bit “loose”, but the young people in the project sing well and touch the heart. Jazz and Trinh’s music are both soulful, there is something “rolling” together so the listeners can sympathize.

“It is very difficult to translate Mr. Son’s music into English, and even more difficult in other languages. Therefore, the translator and arranger have to work very hard to be able to “change the look” of the music,” said Ms. Vinh Trinh.

Responding to some recent clips of AI singing Trinh's songs, Ms. Vinh Trinh said she had listened to some rock clips combined with Trinh Cong Son's songs. She found them interesting but also worried about the singer's development and creativity.

“Some people discuss copyright issues when AI sings Trinh’s music, but this should be handled by the Vietnam Music Copyright Protection Center. This unit has expertise, so they can do a better job than the family,” said Ms. Trinh.

Quynh Pham - one of the singers who has been involved with jazz for the past 25 years and is also the founder of this project - explained that the project's name was inspired by the song "Let's Love Each Other" by musician Trinh Cong Son.

According to Quynh Pham, in the past decade, Trinh’s music has been renewed by many young people. However, most of them are still just individual experiments, or in other words, beautiful notes… but not yet a long-term arrangement.

"With this project, whether sung in Vietnamese, English or any other language, the melody still tells the same story of love, loneliness, loss and the desire to live a decent life.

We believe Trinh Cong Son’s music can “live” in many languages. Each translation, each voice is a new dialogue with beauty and sadness – a dialogue that never ends,” said Quynh Pham.

Singer Quynh Pham shares about the project of translating Trinh's music into English, Japanese and Korean (Photo: Organizing Committee).

Mr. Nguyen Nhat Tuan, Head of the Graduate Training Department, Hanoi University, the project's language consultant, said that he not only "translated the lyrics" of the song but also had to almost rewrite the emotions in another language.

"Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, rich in tones, just a small mark can change the emotional tone, while English has a completely different rhythm, stress, and release.

Processing a Trinh song in English is a parallel journey between meaning and music: Keeping the meaning can easily ruin the music, and keeping the music can easily lose Trinh's soul. Therefore, I always research carefully to find a similar emotional rhythm, not a sentence-by-sentence, word-by-word translation," said Mr. Nguyen Nhat Tuan.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giai-tri/em-gai-trinh-cong-son-noi-gi-khi-ca-si-tre-hat-nhac-trinh-bang-tieng-anh-20251025004403107.htm