Chapter 5 examines how and why the VOV music ensembles are keeping their red music relevant in contemporary Vietnam. In the reform era, the ensembles were separated into two groups: the national or ethnic music ensemble (nhóm nhạc dân tộc), comprised of traditional instrumentalists and folk singers, and the new music ensemble (nhóm nhạc mới), which performs Vietnamese songs and instrumental music composed for choir and chamber orchestra. Drawing on fieldwork at the radio studios in Hanoi, this research provides an ethnographic account of contemporary music production processes at the station. The first case study examines how recordings by the traditional music ensemble, a versatile group of instrumentalists and folk singers, represent and reify the three major cultural regions of Vietnam. The second explores how productions by the new music ensemble, which reference the musical styles of DRV revolutionary opera, memorialize government achievements, valorize heroes of the past, and are made relevant to the contemporary political context through references to current issues such as territorial claims in the South China Sea. Rather than dismiss these musicians as political puppets, the chapter investigates their creative, pragmatic approaches to the constraints and contradictions of life in a (post)socialist state. Meanwhile, culture brokers working at these national broadcasters are leading the politicization of this intangible cultural heritage, a process they justify with the language of cultural sustainability.
