Mỹ Tâm Huynh (pronounced: mee thum hwin), aka “mitamu,” is an interdisciplinary multi-award winning artist who draws inspiration from all forms of storytelling. The heart of her music is rooted in her Vietnamese American culture and Black American creative music. Many questions surrounding identity, culture, and values collide in her practice. These questions often become the music Huynh wants to create.
Themes she has previously explored include fragmentation and identity, multiculturalism, and most recently, futurism. Huynh takes pride in her songwriting and actively performs under “mitamu.” Her first studio album, sunflower in the east, released on October 30th, 2021. It is influenced by everything from jazz, new wave, and poetry. The record is a tribute to the trials and triumphs of growing up, learning to be vulnerable, and maintaining a creative existence in a commodified world. With poignant lyrics and creative production, it evokes nostalgia for the romance of youth within a more sophisticated future. This bittersweet vista is Huynhʼs own life, each song representing a significant moment and flowing with improvisation and poetry. In 2022, Huynh won 1st place at the Beta Hi-Fi Emerging Artist Festival Competition. She was selected out of 300 artists and performed among nine other finalists.
Huynh is a self-described futurist and strives to create musical compositions that explore collective storytelling through improvisation and the relationship between visual art, poetry, music, and technology. She is planning to showcase her vision in her sophomore album, projected to release in 2025.
Huynh is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music (MM’22) and the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University (BM’18). Upon graduating, she accepted a position at the Manhattan School of Music as faculty for the Jazz Arts program. In 2023, Huynh was a winner of ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, ASCAP Phoebe Jacobs recipient, resident composer and teaching artist for Wildflower Composers and Asian Arts Initiative. In 2023 and 2024, she was named a semi-finalist of the Next Jazz Legacy program. Huynh is an alum of several renowned programs such as the Banff International Workshop in Jazz & Creative Music, Diamond Research Scholars Program, and bespoken fellowship program. Through these opportunities, she strives to further her vision of Asian futurism and decolonization through art.
