Album Notes

Nancy Dovan was just a diligent university student when she revitalized the mold of classical virtuoso and passionate depth with the release of her first piano album TIENG THU, forging a new style of romanticism and Vietnamese classical music into the modern Western world. Performing Vietnamese music known as "Intellectual Pre-War Music" that which was only written for vocalists and operas, Nancy was the first Vietnamese pianist to transcribe and record them for the piano. Her album is heard and sold through out her country and in the United States, especially among the 1.2 million Vietnamese population in America.

Now she makes her second debut and marks a new musical direction with the release of THE COMPOSER. The highly original album celebrates the elegance of survival; original compositions written from her experiences of communistic and political conflicts in her country, escape of the Vietnam War, and finding new found freedom in America.

THE COMPOSER is written in three chapters: The Conflict, The Escape, and Freedom. The opening composition is War and Peace, a virtuoso piece played with extreme passion and robust. Conversely, The Missing, is performed with emotional sadness, hearing the cries of lost love.

Nancy Dovan brings to this project the experience of a classical piano prodigy, as well as, a classical composer sensation who innately began composing with pots and pans as a child, emulating the sounds of gun fire shots heard through out Ho Chi Minh City. Performing her first original concerto in her early teens, this endeavor tapped into an innate talent that may make her the next modern Chopin.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam, on January 1st and sharing the same birthday as Johann Christian Bach, Nancy Diem Huyen Dovan (pronounced Zim-Hwin Doe-Vaughn) escaped from the war with her parents when she was a child, and came to the United States as a political refugee. She began classical piano studies three years later and made her professional debut on the international stage with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra by the time she was twelve years old. Nancy continued her classical training, studying with instructor Ethel Campbell, Professor William Van Overeem, and Juilliard Professor Nina Scolnik. Nancy received her Baccalaureate in Music from the University of California, Irvine, with an emphasis in Piano Performance, in addition to a Baccalaureate in Biology.

Born into a family of scholars where her grandfather was a professor of French as well as a writer, her uncle an economist as well as a sculptor, and another uncle a physicist as well as a poet, Nancy cultivated her mind as well as her creativity. Aside from her classical discipline, Nancy pursued her intellectual curiosity of international law by studying abroad at Oxford University in England. She further obtained a Juris Doctorate degree from Abraham Lincoln University College of Law in the United States.

In 1997, Nancy represented her country as Miss Vietnam. She remains to be an ambassador of her country, hoping to bridge the gap between the East and West through the venue of classical music.

"The modern Chopin." -BBC