Ca tru goes to university

Yesterday I was invited to a ceremony at the FPT University. I wasn't really sure what it was all about but Hue had mentioned to me that they had plans to start a ca tru drum course at the university, however, I had I assumed that this was a bit into the future. As It turned out this was the opening ceremony of the ca tru course. When I arrived (30 min late due to Hanoian traffic and wrong turns) Linh, Thuy and Ngoc from the Thang Long Ca tru club were performing. I was a bit surprised but delighted to see Nguyen Thi Chuc there as well. She also sang a piece on stage before the first group of drum students entered the stage. Together with the vice-rector of the university Dr. Nguyen Khac Thanh they hit three strokes on their drums to symbolise the start of the new course. I had the opportunity to have a chat with Dr. Thanh about the new course when all the students had left. He said that he had always been a bit of a folklore enthusiast and that he felt that in such a theoretical university as FPT (focusing mainly on finance and IT subjects) there was a need for a practical art subject. He thought that there were things, such as for example ethics, that was better taught with music. He and another member of the board, who both knew Hue since before, had suggested that the university should try to have a music course on the schedule. After talking to Hue the ca tru course was put into the range of courses that the students could choose from and they decided that they should start out with a maximum of 15 students. All the positions in the course were taken and these students will have a total of 12 lessons of one and a half hour each. The subject will both include practical drum beating and more theoretical issues such as ca tru history and music structure. The first lesson will start later this week and Hue will be the main teacher. This is not the first experiment the Hue and the Thang Long club have made with audience courses for ca tru, they have had regular free audience classes in the club before. Hopefully their experiences from teaching these classes will make the new university course an interesting and useful one for the students. As far as I am aware this is the first university course entirely devoted to ca tru and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out!