Thu Minh

She then became well known for the success of many Viet classic songs, pre-war music, love songs in 1954–1975, pop ballad, pop in both English and Vietnamese.

She also covered some famous ballads of Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, including "I Will Always Love You" and "All by Myself"

The biggest turning point in her musical career came with the success of the songs "Chuông gió" ("Wind chime"), "Bóng mây qua thềm", and "Nhớ anh" ("Missing you").

In more recent years, Minh came out with songs with a dance-pop sound such as "Đường cong" ("Curves"), "Bay" ("Fly"), "Taxi", and "Xinh" ("Pretty").

Vũ Thu Minh (born September 22, 1977) often known simply as Thu Minh, is a Vietnamese pop-singer.

She is famous for pop ballads and dance-pop music and is referred to as the "Queen of Dance-pop in Vietnam".

Thu Minh is also called "Vietnam's Celine Dion" and "The wind chime of Vietnamese music" due to her famous and rare soprano C or Lyric soprano singing voice that has a range from C3 (low) to C7 (high) with the highest belt note C#6, headvoice E6, and some whistle.

She originally trained to be a ballet dancer, and, before the age of 30, she had never officially attended any professional music school.

Thu Minh gain fame after winning first prize as the youngest contestant in the live singing competition Broadcast of Ho Chi Minh at the age of 16.

Thu Minh was born on September 22, 1977, in Hanoi.

Her sister is married and lives in the U.S., while her elder brother's family lives with her parents in Ho Chi Minh City.

She lives in Ho Chi Minh city as well.

Some media reports cited Thu Minh's father as an artist named Hoang Quan. However, this information is inaccurate.

During the period of 1990s and before 2001, Thu Minh often performed classic songs, traditional pre-war and love songs.

Some which still get the audience's preference include "Thousand purple revenue" by musician Hoang Trong, "The Shadow of the Kapok Tree" by musician Phan Huynh Dieu, "Giọt mưa thu" of musician Dang The Phong,"Thuyền viễn xứ" of composer Pham Duy,"Thời hoa đỏ" ("The Red Flower") of poet Thanh Tung.

In addition, foreign songs like "the seasonal flowers Domino" had been broadcast repeatedly on the governed Broadcast VTV.

She also performed English classic hits of divas such as Whitney Houston and Celine Dion to appreciative live audiences.

In 2000, Thu Minh sang a duet with one of Vietnam's most famous musicians, Tran Tien, in one of the most favorite songs, "She's carefree", in his own concert entitled Improvisative Tran Tien.

In an interview conducted directly with her father by YanTV in 2010, he confirmed that the family is not engaged in art or the entertainment industry, except Thu Minh.

He also confirmed that his name is Vu Ngoc Kim.

Thu Minh participated in some musical activities and small musical contests during her school days.

After graduating from middle school, she studied to be a professional ballet dancer at The Dance School of Ho Chi Minh City.

As the youngest contestant, at the age of 15, Thu Minh had a chance to encounter the most prestigious national contest at that time – Tiếng hát truyền hình – established by The Broadcast of Ho Chi Minh when she saw it from a banner.

She did not reveal her idea to family and registered on her own.

However, when she reached for the final round, she was eliminated by the contest jury when it figured out that she was too young to qualify for the competition.

Thu Minh cried her eyes out.

Yet, thanks to her father's later encouragement, she continued to practice and returned to the competition at the age of 16.

This time, Thu Minh was still the youngest contestant and she won a gold medal as the first prize.

This debut impressed audiences and musical experts with a natural high and strong Soprano C voice by performing two classic Vietnamese hit songs "Bóng cây Kơ-nia" ("The Shadow of the Kapok Tree") and "Tình ca cho em" ("Love song for you") for the highest scores despite the fact that she had never been educated for professional music and was pursuing a professional career as a ballet dancer.

Almost 20 years later, "Tình ca cho em" is revealed to be a song that its author, musician Nguyen Nam, wrote for Thu Minh as a gift before she attended the contest, when she sang this song again and expressed her feelings about the former musician in his funeral and on an aired ceremony.

Although it was a perfect ticket and highly valued by music professionals, a long period of "treading water" which followed could not help but lead audiences to put her under the list of "the stars that never shine".

Even though Thu Minh has been considered as one of the most hard-working and dedicated to music career among Vietnamese singers with powerful passion, enthusiasm and optimism, audiences still couldn't imagine Thu Minh shone the way she should have.

Sharing on that point, Thu Minh presumed that she never regrets, and is even proud of, her career going "slowly, slowly but firmly".

Although her love relationship with the musician Hoai Sa could easily generate a great CD or album for her career, Thu Minh admitted that at that time, she actually did not think of pursuing pop music.

She only sang because she wanted to sing and to earn enough money for building a private house for her parents.

She solely used to sing for bars, discothèque, acoustic cafe, and clubs to stabilize her regular income.

When accomplishing the dream, Thu Minh decided to produce and release an album.

That is why she almost appeared to be non-participative in Vietnam music and entertainment industry back to those days.

In addition, Thu Minh has won the championship in the show Dancing with the Stars (on Vietnamese TV) (2011).

In 2012 and 2017, she was one of four judges and coaches on the reality show The Voice of Vietnam. Phạm Thị Hương Tràm and Ali Hoàng Dương, mentored by Thu Minh, became the winners of the 1st and 4th seasons of the show, respectively.