Twenty countries to participate in Taste of the World 2013

Twenty countries and territories from around the world have registered for the 8th Taste of the World Culinary Festival, scheduled to take place in Ho Chi Minh City from December 5-8.

Among the 60 exhibitors are restaurants, hotels, culinary institutes, consul general’s offices and foreign missions, who will present more than 120 food stalls featuring delicious dishes and culinary art from 20 countries around the world.

Visitors will have a chance to explore cultural diversity and enjoy typical dishes from many countries. Some of the many great activities planned include cooking and serving delicacies at food booths, demonstrations by the head chefs of five-star hotels, tastings of international wine, bartending performances and much more.

The festival will also include a series of activities to explore the cultural identities of participating countries, such as folk games, traditional costumed performances, traditional music and art shows.

The annual event has been jointly organised by the Ho Chi Minh City municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the city’s Tourism Association.

2013’s largest online book festival in November

More than 90 publishing houses nationwide will gather for an online book festival, which will take place from November 1-11 at http://hoisachonline.vn and http://hoisachonline.tiki.vn .

Organised by the Tiki Joint Stock Company (Titi.vn), the festival will introduce about 20,000 book titles in many various genres. All of them will be discounted from 20-50 percent.

In the framework of the festival, other activities will be held, including the announcement of the list of best buy 100 book titles on website Titi.vn in 2013 and a contest for book-lovers.

Especially, the festival will also see presence of a great number of book titles which were reprinted at readers’ request.-

Popular pianist honours Germany

Japanese pianist Mari Terada will perform works by Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Liszt, and Mussorgsky in a solo piano concert this weekend called Autumn Dreams.

She said at a press conference yesterday that the concert is expression of gratitude to her spiritual homeland - Germany.

"The country is an indispensable part of my life," she said, explaining that she had grown up and studied music in Germany.

The concert will start with Chopin's Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op Posth. 66.

The next piece will bring in an autumn atmosphere with Chopin's Sherzo No 2 in B-flat minor, Op 31.

The third song is one of the most beloved items that Brahms composed in 1893, expressing his secret and unilateral love to Clara Schumann, a German composer and one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era.

A happy note will be struck next with C. Debussy's Clair de Lune and F. Chopin's Waltz in E-Flat Major, Op. 18 Grande Valse Brilliante.

This will be followed by two works of Liszt, who Mari called "a pioneer in piano performance style".

The second part of the concert will be taken up by M. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

This part will have a "secret" combination between music and painting, and "I hope the audience will like this", Mari said.

The concert will take place from 8pm on Friday, November 1, at the Music Conservatory, 112 Nguyen Du Street, District 1, HCM City.

Terada completed her performers' course at Folkwang Hochschule fuer Musik in Essen, Germany, in 1991, and from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris in France in 1994.

She received the Debussy prize at Albert Roussel International Piano Competition in Bulgaria in 1994, the C. Frank Prize, medal and diploma at the Rome International Piano Competition.

On her debut, she was chosen as one of three most talented upcoming piano artists in Japan by music magazine Ongaku no Tomo.

Her second solo CD, Debussy (2006), was chosen as "the most recommended Disc" by Rekord Geijutsu and Chopin magazines.

She made her Viet Nam debut in 2006 with the Vietnamese National Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart's piano compositions in Ha Noi.

German month

Dr Hans-Dieter Stell, consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany, said October can be described as the German month of this year in Viet Nam.

It began with a celebration of the Day of German Unity and was followed by the famous Oktoberfest, a festival of beers, which entertained thousands of Germans and Vietnamese residents in HCM City.

Several high-ranking delegations visited Viet Nam, during the month, with one of them led by Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit.

"The month will conclude with a cultural highlight – an evening of classical music," Hans-Dieter said.

"Her Autumn Dreams fulfills a double purpose. It reflects the current seasonal atmosphere in Germany, and at the same time will certainly succeed in getting audience into the mood of this calm time of the year," he added.

He noted that all 500 free tickets to the concert have been delivered, and that he hopes the concert will "see a meeting of people from three countries".

Vietnamese trio triumphs at Shanghai cuisine contest

Chefs Le Xuan Tam from Caravelle Hotel and Tran Ngo Lam Khanh from Sofitel Plaza Saigon and sommelier Tran Quoc Thanh from Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam won first prize at the Disciples of Escoffier Team Trophy in Shanghai, China last week.

The trio defeated rivals from Hong Kong, China and Macau at the Asian Region Competition with their five-course menu featuring crab tartar and mango ravioli in golden leaf, Norwegian salmon steak with royale sauce, poached egg in red wine sauce, beetroot jelly, mashed split pea, Saint-Germain style boneless short rib and Poire belle helene.

“As manager I am proud to choose the right guys. Great team,” Paul Le, vice general secretary of Disciples of Escoffier Vietnam, who sent the team to the contest, told the Daily.

Disciples of Escoffier Vietnam is an affiliate of the Disciples d’Auguste Escoffier created in 1954 by Jean Ducroux, a chef from Nice and president of the “Fraternelle des Cuisiniers” culinary order to honor French chef Auguste Escoffier.

Hard Rock Café hosts family Halloween events

Those who are looking for the perfect venue to hang out on Halloween Night with friends and family should consider the Hard Rock Café (HRC) which has two separate themed events on Thursday downtown.

The “Kids Rock – Alice in Wonderland” which is for families, kids and young teenagers will take place from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at HRC ground floor featuring a Halloween cupcake design contest, arts and crafts, face painting and Trick or Treat bags.

Tickets are priced at VND450,000 per person.

Adults will enjoy free entrance to the Halloween Costume Party themed “The Walking Dead Land” from 8 p.m. to midnight at HRC Basement (main stage). Partygoers can join in by wearing a Halloween costume while enjoy Halloween-themed music by HRC’s house band Pitch Black in a room filled with fun decorations.

Hard Rock Cafe HCMC is located at Kumho Asiana Plaza, 39 Le Duan Boulevard, District 1, tel: (08) 6291 7596.

“There Where We Were” dance in Saigon

Successful contemporary dance, it could be argued, can either stretch an audience’s idea of what is possible, or consolidate earlier experiment into solid achievement.

Last weekend saw two nights at the HCMC Opera House where a small number of youthful dancers presented two contrasting works. According to the printed program they were three works, but the second and third were seamlessly linked, and the discussion with the audience which followed assumed that we had in fact seen just the two.

The first item, entitled Beyond the Line, featured two couples and was vigorous, forceful and energizing. The excellent music, by composer/Meritorious Artist Quoc Trung, was percussive and wistful by turns, and provided the framework around which the dance was structured. There didn’t appear to be any story, or even theme, though in the post-performance discussion it transpired there was an issue as to whether people stayed behind the “line” of convention, or broke out into a new and, ideally, freer world.

Dancers/Meritorious Artists Ngo Thuy To Nhu and Nguyen Thi Chuc Quynh, and dancers Vu Ngoc Khai and Nguyen Ngoc Anh embodied the music’s essential energy, and Nguyen Ngoc Anh’s choreography, together with a generous use of red light, made for a cogent and impressive event.

The second item, There Where We Were, was completely different. It was in essence a ceremony of innocence, to borrow a phrase from the Irish poet W.B.Yeats. It was slow, gentle, and even appeared to have a story. And rather than rely on red light, it was dominated, entirely appropriately, by a gentle and pale green.

It began with a small girl going to school, with black-and-white animated drawings projected onto a blackboard-like screen. Soon there was a boy too, dressed like the girl in navy school shorts. Soon they moved back from the apron onto the main stage where a giant white see-saw was revealed. This became the focus of almost all the subsequent action.

And inevitably the two grew into teenagers, and started dancing with each other. Again the music was mostly by Quoc Trung, but this time it was largely plangent and almost romantic, entirely appropriate for a scenario that was increasingly dominated by feelings of recollection and nostalgia.

But playfulness marked it out as well, as when a shower of paper darts, luminous against a dark background, swooped and turned, some landing among the audience. Another scenic effect, whose purpose was less clear, was a dense cloud of stage smoke that briefly engulfed the front rows of the stalls.

The two principal dancers were also the choreographers. They were Nguyen Ngoc Anh again, who currently lives in Hong Kong, and Ta Thuy Chi, who lives in Beijing. They deserve full praise for an original creation that, while it must have been 50 minutes long, was never dull, and was frequently genuinely touching.

Fukushima festival to feature images and culture of Japan

The latest images of reconstruction in Fukushima Prefecture, devastated by the 2011 Japan tsunami, will be featured at the Fukushima festival in Hanoi from November 2-3.

The event, entitled ‘Bridging Vietnam-Fukushima Friendship’ is jointly organised by the Fukushima’s Japan-Vietnam Friendship Association and the Vietnam Women’s Museum to  mark the 40th anniversary of Vietnam-Japan diplomatic relations and the 23rd anniversary of ties between Vietnam and the Fukushima Friendship Association.

According to the organisers, the event aims to show Fukushima’s gratitude for the spiritual and material support given by the Vietnamese people when the region was hit by the tsunami of 2011.

The festival will feature images depicting landmarks in the diplomatic relations between Fukushima and Vietnam and recent reconstruction efforts in Fukushima Prefecture.

Stalls will be set up to introduce visitors to elements of Japanese culture, such as tea ceremonies, sake rice wine, Japanese films and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging.

The festival will also spotlight traditional Japanese costumes and folk dance performances by groups from Fukushima.

The activities are scheduled from 10am to 4pm each day at the Vietnam Womens’ Museum; 36 Ly Thuong Kiet street, Hoan Kiem District.