An important part of that doctoral dissertation (2025) is stories of many Vietnamese women who lived through the wars of the 20th century. That was when I learned more about Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu (1906–2012), the first female medical doctor in Vietnam and the first Vietnamese woman to earn a medical degree in France. Since then, I have been harboring the idea of composing a piece dedicated just to her.
Henriette lived in a time when few French women could attend medical school or pursue their medical careers after marriage. But she, a Vietnamese woman under colonial rule, was determined to be a doctor no matter the odds. She went to France, attended a medical school, and graduated in 1934. Then, she returned to Vietnam to practice medicine. Despite facing gender and racial discrimination, like being paid ten times less than her male French colleagues, she never gave up. When the hospital administration required her to wear a Western-styled dress to work, she kept wearing the áo dài to assert her identity as a Vietnamese woman. Her “battle” was the hospital, where she stood against French colonialism in Vietnam and proved her worth as a Vietnamese doctor.
Henriette was a free and strong-willed woman in every sense. According to Nguyễn Ngọc Châu, the son of her lifetime lover, Henriette lived boldly: she played sports, wore high heels, swam in pools, drove a car, enjoyed fine wine, conversed freely with men, and smoked cigarettes (a habit dating back to anatomy classes in France, where students smoked to mask the odor of cadavers). Such simple activities were once far beyond what many Vietnamese women could even dream of, and in pursuing them she powerfully challenged the expectations placed on women of her time.
Pour Henriette (For Henriette) is my musical reflection on her life, and I think of it more like a bagatelle, a quick sketch, than a full portrait. It follows a simple ABA form. Part A, “a lonely walk along the Seine,” revolves around a persistent F-sharp pedal point, a haunting motive, and a yearning melodic line. To me, these elements evoke the emotions behind Henriette’s choice to leave the marvelous Paris for her poor and war-torn homeland under French colonial rule. Part B, marked as “more lively,” features flowing harmonic textures and fragmented melodies inspired by Vietnamese pentatonic folk music. As mentioned by Nguyễn Ngọc Châu in an email to me, Henriette loved Western classical music. Therefore, I attempted to create a style reminiscent of French Impressionism, which I assume she might have encountered during her years in Paris.
This piece is composed for pianist Ian Pace, who premiered it at The Sounds of Now in Vienna, August 2025.
Premiered by Ian Pace at The Sounds of Now in Vienna, August 2025.