Tôn Thất An (aka Aaken) is a Parisian born Vietnamese composer whose field of action spans music for contemporary dance, theatre plays, film score, songs as well as orchestral and instrumental works.
He has composed extensively for Japanese choreographer Jo Kanamori and his company Noism, their first collaboration NINA – materialise sacrifice (2005) toured around the world, PLAY 2 PLAY was awarded best dance work in Japan in 2007, while Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) (2010) blended dance, video, opera and bunraku puppet theatre. He has also collaborated with Régine Chopinot and Jean Paul Gaultier on W.h.a. (2003), with Gang Peng for a contemporary hip-hop ballet Sur le Fil (2007) and with Taiwanese dance wunderkind Huang Yi for Symphony Project (2010), Double Yellow Line (2012), Shadows of Sound (2013), which was premiered at the Ailey CityGroup Theater in New York, and Floating Domain (2014), a piece created for CloudGate 2.
He recently composed Suspended Garden (2024) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Noism.
As singer-songwriter, under the alias of Aaken, he has made three studio albums: Circlesong (2005), Hyperbody (2010), and We Were (t)here (2017), as well as Fukaeri, a collaborative project with Portuguese songstress Bévinda.
He also co-wrote and arranged songs for Forgotten West 西部 (2018), an album by Taiwanese singer Sam Liao, which garnered him the ‘Best Arranger’ award at the 2019 Taiwan Golden Melody and a ‘Best Album in Taiwanese’ for Sam Liao. The two teamed up again in 2022, for Sam Liao’s follow-up album, Into 入 (2022).
His work as a composer also took him to the Philharmonie Hall, Berlin in 2013 where he premiered The Legend of Thanh Giong, a symphonic tale for narrator, đàn bầu (gourd zither) and orchestra, commissioned by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, thus making him the first Vietnamese composer to have his music performed at the Berlin Philharmonie.
In 2015 and 2016, he curated and directed in Saigon an immersive art project entitled FEEL IN/OUT, an immersive art experience that gives a voice to independent Vietnamese artists, mixing performing arts, film, photography, installations, music, dance and fine arts. A film buff from an early age, he has, through his music, supported the emergence of a new wave in Vietnamese cinema, with films such as Ash Mayfair‘s The Third Wife (2018) and Skin of Youth (2025), Leon Lê‘s Song Lang (2018) and Ky Nam Inn (2025), Trần Thanh Huy‘s Ròm (2019) or Bùi Thạc Chuyên‘s Glorious Ashes (2022). Film projects soon would come to him from all over Asia, including Naomi Kawase‘s True Mothers 朝が来る (2020), Edmund Yeo‘s adaptation of Banana Yoshimoto‘s novella Moonlight Shadow ムーンライト・シャドウ (2022) in Japan, Chu Chun Teng‘s EEL 河鰻 (2025) in Taiwan, Lee Yong Chao‘s Rain in 2020 and Sein Lyan Tun‘s Everybody’s gotta love sometimes (2023) in Myanmar, in Indonesia, for Rein Maychaelson‘s Sammi, who can detach his Body Parts (2025), and in China for Lam Can Zhao‘s Where the Sun shines bright (2026).
New and upcoming projects for the 2026-2027 season include film scores for Nguyễn Võ Nghiêm Minh‘s new long feature Chớp bóng [PictureHouse] after a decade long hiatus, Edmund Yeo‘s adaptation of Li Zi Shu‘s novel Age of Goodbyes 告別的年代 , Lou Yi An‘s Snake in the Dreamscapes 夢蛇, the documentary-fiction How to feed a hungry Ghost, by New-York-based Japanese director Erik Shirai, Yvonne Zuo Yi-Fang‘s poetic first feature Beyond the river 在河之洲, as well as a new full length dance piece with Jo Kanamori and his dance company Noism.
FURTHER READING….
“The stars are beautiful because of a flower that can’t be seen.”: A talk with composer Ton That An | January 2026 – Vanity Vietnam (in English)
“Với một nghệ sĩ biểu diễn, tất cả ta sở hữu chính là thời điểm hiện tại khi mỗi nốt nhạc được cất lên” – Tôn Thất An – Vanity Vietnam (tiếng Việt)
Interview for Vietcetera by Thảo Vân | December 28 2021 (in English)
Interview for Vietcetera by Thảo Vân (in Vietnamese)
Interview for Asian Movie Pulse by Panos Kotzathanasis | March 23, 2021
Interview (in Vietnamese) for the weekend edition of newspaper Phụ Nữ | April 2019
Article (in Vietnamese) by Hương Tôn for ELLE Vietnam | August 2018
Interview in Tuổi Trẻ by Minh Trang | April 26th 2015
Interview (in Vietnamese) by Đức Bình for RFI | January 2011
