Nearly a year has passed since singer Duc Phuc beat more than 20 contestants to win the International Music Competition Intervision 2025 in Russia, but his victory continues to receive high praise from experts.
At the roundtable discussion, singer Duc Phuc's performance on the Intervision 2025 stage was highlighted by delegates as an outstanding example of cultural diplomacy, demonstrating how Vietnamese identity can strongly appeal to international audiences through art.
Speaking at the event, Russian People's Artist, composer and producer Igor Matvienko said that Nguyen Duc Phuc's performance clearly met the criteria of Intervision by combining modern sounds with Vietnamese melodies, images and traditional elements. In his view, this combination helped bring Vietnamese cultural values and love for national roots closer to international audiences.
Anastasia Kravchenko, Belarus's representative at Intervision 2025, said she was particularly impressed by Duc Phuc's performance. She noted that his choice of the song “Phu Dong Thien Vuong”, inspired by the poem “Tre Viet Nam” (Vietnamese bamboo), helped introduce Vietnamese identity to international audiences in a natural and vivid way.
“Through this performance, singer Duc Phuc truly introduced Vietnamese culture to international audiences and made people appreciate Vietnamese culture,” Anastasia Kravchenko shared.
The impression left by the competition also inspired the Belarusian singer to visit Viet Nam soon afterwards. According to her, the event showed that art can serve as a bridge, opening new encounters and dialogue between peoples.
Speaking via video at the roundtable discussion, singer Duc Phuc stressed that the modern world is extremely rich and diverse, with every country and people possessing their own distinct cultural identity and language. These differences can sometimes create barriers, but art, and music in particular, is a wonderful bridge that can narrow or even remove such distances.
According to the delegates, culture can become an effective diplomatic channel. Instead of conveying messages through political or diplomatic concepts, art helps audiences directly feel the identity, history and values of a country.
Olga Pavlenko, Vice-Rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities, said that understanding Viet Nam requires full attention to its history, culture and the values that have shaped the Vietnamese national spirit.
These values have not only helped Viet Nam overcome many challenges throughout its history but have also provided a foundation for the country's strong development, she said.
Stanislav Naumov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, also emphasised the role of culture in building international trust.
According to Naumov, Viet Nam has gradually turned culture into a tool of diplomacy and trust-building. The creative work of young Vietnamese artists demonstrates their ability to combine national identity with modern forms, thereby conveying Vietnamese values to international audiences in an accessible language.
