Grammy winner to perform at Ho Chi Minh City int’l music festival

Indian artist and Grammy winner Ricky Kej will join a series of Vietnamese and foreign artists to perform at an international music festival in Ho Chi Minh City next month.

The Ho Chi Minh City International Music Festival, or HOZO, is scheduled to take place from December 13 to 15 at Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in District 1. Known in Vietnamese as ‘Ho do 2019,’ the live music fest will host a variety of music genres from world music, jazz, and pop to folk music, featuring artists from France, Belgium, Spain, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Greece, Cuba and Vietnam. With the message of ‘More music, less plastic,’ the organizing board will deliver e-tickets instead of physical ones to attendees. In order to have a free ticket, participants are required to log on to the website https://hozomusicfestival.com/tickets/ and complete a simple challenge that is designed to spread the message of protecting the environment. The organizers will also take measures to minimize single-use plastics within the venue of the event.

The list of the Vietnamese and international artists who will be joining the festival has recently been announced. Among them, Indian composer and music producer Ricky Kej will perform on the second day of the event, December 14. Kej won Best New Age Album at the 57th annual Grammy Awards in 2015 for his album ‘Winds of Samsara.’ On December 15, the third day of the festival, Vietnamese-American jazz trumpeter Cuong Vu will have a solo performance and a duet with renowned Vietnamese saxophonist Tran Manh Tuan. Ho Chi Minh City has hosted many international music festivals, but HOZO will be the first-ever event of its scale to be organized by the city’s authorities instead of the private sector.