Musician Nguyen Cuong, 82 years old, exercises 3 hours a day, shares about his wife, 19 years younger

Musician Nguyen Cuong was born in 1943 into a middle-class family on Hang Bac Street, Hanoi. At the age of 16, he entered the Hanoi College of Music (now the Vietnam National Academy of Music) to study cello.

After graduating in 1965, Nguyen Cuong was assigned to the Tay Nguyen Song and Dance Troupe (now Dam San Song and Dance Troupe), which was based in Hanoi at that time. From 1967, he transferred to work at the Political Education Department of the University of Mining and Geology.

At the age of 82, musician Nguyen Cuong confided that he does not write songs but focuses on composing long works, mainly operas. There are works that take him 4-5 years to complete.

The musician said that composing is very tiring. Therefore, for many years now, he has maintained the habit of exercising 3 hours a day including swimming, walking, meditating...

“Many people say that I am still young at this age, traveling everywhere tirelessly. Simply because I do not like being sick, aging is embarrassing. If I fear that, my spirit will always be cheerful, I work hard to exercise to be diligent, to slow down aging,” the musician confided.

The musician said that he rarely appeared in public without his hat, which helped him hide the signs of aging. His cowboy hat collection was too large to count. Occasionally, when he met a close friend, Nguyen Cuong gave them one, but it seemed no one dared to wear it.

Nguyen Cuong said he never sits down to compose for 2-3 hours straight. Because the nature of music is that emotions come very quickly, at most he only sits at his desk for 45 minutes and does not compose after 8pm: “I have a very close friend, musician Pho Duc Phuong. During his lifetime, Mr. Phuong always worked until 2-3am. As for me, I dare anyone to discuss or talk about work after 8pm and honestly, 10am is the best time for me to work. I am a Sun person, so as soon as the sun rises I compose.”(laugh)".

Rarely talking about his family and his marriage to his wife, 19 years younger than him, musician Nguyen Cuong does not like to be introduced as “this is the wife of musician Nguyen Cuong”, although he is very proud of his husband. He said that his wife, born in 1962, is a “tiger king” so her personality is stronger than usual, but at home she is very calm. Therefore, the two live in harmony with each other.

Nguyen Cuong rarely composes songs for women, but this is the only songSpring Ca TruWritten for his wife. At that time, the two were in love, his wife was in her 20s, he wrote it for fun when he felt like it, without any calculation, but in the end the work became popular, and was sung everywhere every Tet.

Nguyen Cuong, at the age of over 80, no longer worries or regrets anything, because focusing on composing operas has cost him a lot of effort and passion. That is also the way for him to preserve and protect national cultural values.