Van Anh

Van Anh (1971-    ) is an overseas Vietnamese singer of mixed Vietnamese and African-American parentage.

Born in Bien Hoa, South Vietnam in 1971, Van Anh is the eldest in a family of two children.  Her father was a serviceman in the US military of African-American descent who had met her mother while he was stationed in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  Shortly after her birth, Van Anh's mother would lose all contact with her American father as he had been sent back to the United States after serving his tour of duty in Vietnam.  Van Anh and her younger brother, Alex, were then raised solely by their mother in Vietnam.  A year after her graduation from high school in Bien Hoa, Van Anh along with her mother and younger brother moved to her fatherland, the United States, under the Amerasian Homecoming Act.

Once resettled in Dallas, Texas in the year of 1990, Van Anh began her professional singing career in the local Vietnamese community there.  During the 1990s, the small yet thriving overseas Vietnamese pop music scene of Dallas, Texas would spawn such rising new singing sensations like Diem Lien and Jenny Hien.  Van Anh's gradual growing popularity as a singer within the Vietnamese community of Dallas, Texas over time would result in her following in the footsteps of her predecessors and rise to stardom.  After having established her name firmly with the audience within the Vietnamese community of Dallas came numerous invitations for Van Anh to perform at live show engagements in Houston, the city with the largest concentrated Vietnamese population in the state of Texas.  Once she had conquered the audience in Texas, then it was onto major cities state to state that she would continue to win the hearts of audiences.  In 2005, through the suggestion of her close friend, the late singer La Suong Suong, Van Anh decided to give Southern California a try in order to be near Little Saigon of Orange County, the largest Vietnamese community in the United States and also unofficially known as the overseas Vietnamese entertainment capital.  During the next four years, Van Anh would successfully carve out a name for herself as an overseas Vietnamese singer with her rich, soulful singing voice and exotic beauty.  As a live performer, it had become apparent that she had quickly turned herself into the ultimate crowd pleaser among Vietnamese music lovers at her shows in cities throughout the United States and Canada.  Right around this time, Van Anh began collaborating as one of the principal singers at benefit concerts formed by Gia Đình Mỹ Việt, a non-profit organization which provides assistance to Amerasians in Vietnam.  For more than a decade, Van Anh along with several other fellow Amerasian singers including Randy, Lilian, Phi Nhung, Dai Trang, Phuong Thao, Ngoc Anh, Jenny Trang and Thien Phu have performed to sold out crowds at such events all over the United States.

In 2012, Van Anh released her debut studio album, Không Còn Mùa Thu, which comprised of a selection of Vietnamese love ballads.  Produced entirely in Vietnam with arrangements in the style of big band orchestra, jazz and blues complete with lush strings, horn and percussion sections, Van Anh's debut album turned out to be a critical success.  Among the tracks featured on this album included renditions of such Vietnamese classic ballads like Nỗi Lòng written by Nguyễn Văn Khánh, Chuyện Thường Tình Thế Thôi written by Lê Quang and Có Những Niềm Riêng written by Lê Tín Hương.  That same year, Van Anh was also invited to appear on the popular live show music video series produced by Blue Ocean performing her smooth rendition of Nỗi Lòng. 

Van Anh lives in Dallas, Texas.    

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