Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer/Autumn 2018 | Page 16

MUSIC EDUCATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF PRESTIGE
percentage of the South Vietnamese population, it failed to compete with the National
Liberation Front’s practice of directly redistributing land to farmers. As the American
CIA operative Edward Lansdale wrote in 1961, the Diệm regime failed to generate a
national sense of solidarity. The Viet Cong’s National Liberation Front “had been able to
infiltrate the most productive area of South Vietnam and gain control of nearly all of it
except for narrow corridors protected by military actions” (Latham 2011:136).
The West German Foreign Office contributed to the United States’s nation-building
strategy not only through financial support, but also by directly assisting the South Vietnamese
regime in gaining both international prestige and the goodwill of the South Vietnamese
populace through cultural diplomacy. Diệm had requested that West Germany
send a conductor to improve the Saigon Symphony Orchestra (Betz 1960). Söllner’s
initial stint in South Vietnam was thus part of a larger agreement to improve the relations
between South Vietnam and West Germany. Söllner’s work in Saigon began shortly after
the opening of the West German embassy in South Vietnam in 1960 (Betz 1960). While
Söllner’s apartment was provided by the South Vietnamese state, the West German Foreign
Office paid Söllner a considerable salary of 9,000 German marks for his first sixmonth
stay in Saigon.
Otto Söllner conducting the Saigon Symphony Orchestra in August 1960 and Ngo Thi Nhu
Mai (left), who is described as a “young and talented pianist.” The photograph illustrated the
Times of Vietnam article “Saigon Symphony Orchestra Enthrals Audience.”
When Söllner started working with the Saigon Symphony Orchestra in May 1960, he
did not have to start from scratch. He could rely on the work of the U.S. conductor William
Strickland who, in addition to founding and teaching the Saigon Symphony Orchestra
in 1959, had set up a Symphony Society for the orchestra’s continuing support
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