Since 2006, The Six Tones has been bringing art music from Vietnam and Europe together, touring as an instrumental music group or in music theatre projects, and working with choreographers. The group plays traditional Vietnamese music in hybrid settings for Western stringed instruments and traditional Vietnamese instruments. They improvise in traditional and experimental Western idioms and commission new music by composers in Asia as well as in Western countries. Since 2010, the group has developed a conceptually driven, cross-disciplinary practice, creating choreographed productions, music theatre, film, and video installations. The Six Tones are Nguyễn Thanh Thủy (who plays Đàn tranh), Ngô Trà My (who plays Đàn bầu), and Stefan Östersjö (who plays guitar and also many other stringed instruments). See further www.thesixtones.net. 

The four authors of this paper are David G. Hebert, ethnomusicologist and professor who has worked extensively on the development of online teaching for universities in China; Stefan Östersjö, chaired professor of Musical Performance at Piteå School of Music. He is PI of the Musical Transformations project and has long-term experience in intercultural collaboration, first and foremost through his work in The Six Tones; Nguyen Thanh Thuy (PhD in artistic research) who is a world leading performer of the dan tranh Vietnamese zither. Her Ph.D. discusses the performance of traditional Vietnamese music in contemporary culture, in particular how a performance culture has been created for popular TV-shows, through the lens of gender analysis; Henrik Frisk, electronic music composer and professor with the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Henrik is also a founding member of The Six Tones, and has long-term experience in networked performance.