Free music playing at Noi Bai int’l airport

Artists perform folk music at the first concert on May 19.

“Air music”, a 120-minute performance featuring Vietnamese traditional music and instruments in combination with contemporary chamber music, made its first debut at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, on May 19.

Artists from the Vietnam National Academy of Music, culture and art schools, and community bands entertained passengers with traditional musical instruments like two-chord guitar, fiddles and zithers.

Popular pieces of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn’s music were part of the performance, which aims to create a hospitable welcome environment at airport.

Between May and August, Air Music is performed twice a week at Noi Bai International Airport.

It will be then held in other international airports nationwide.

German art to be shown to Vietnamese children

Vietnamese children aged from 8 to 12 will have the chance to discover German people and culture when they attend a special education programme held in Hanoi on May 23, 24 and 31.

The children will be able to explore an art exhibition featuring 23 German masterpieces, which range from expressionist work to more realistic depictions of German life.

The children’s thoughts and feelings about the art will then be channeled through a creative mask-making activity, helping them develop their artistry, teamwork and presentation skills.

The event, jointly held by the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum and the Goethe Institute, is part of the exhibition “New Paintings from Germany”. It is organised on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam-German diplomatic relations.

The exhibition, which opened on May 14 and will run until May 31, is showcasing works of six German artists, ranging from large-scale formatted figurative paintings to smaller pieces of wood.

National exhibition on children’s paintings to be launched

A national exhibition on children’s paintings will open in Hanoi on May 27 to mark International Children’s Day (June 1).

The exhibition will feature about 400 paintings selected from 34,250 entries submitted for a painting contest launched for children in 574 schools across the country.

The paintings on display will show children’s love for their families and teachers as well as scenes of student life.

The exhibition is part of a biennial programme of children’s paintings co-organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; the Ministry of Education and Training; and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, with the aim of promoting art in schools.

Power saving cartoon contest wraps up

A cartoon contest to promote power saving wrapped up on May 20 with an awards ceremony held in Ho Chi Minh City.

The first prize was awarded to Nguyen Thi Diep Thanh from Nghe An province for her work “Tuong Phan” (The Contrast) while second prizes went to Thua Thien-Hue province’s Nguyen Duc Tri for “Cang Tang Cang Giam” (The More, The Less) and Nguyen Quang Phan in Hanoi for “Chi Co The La Tiet Kiem Dien” (The Only Solution is Power Saving).

Three other contestants from Ho Chi Minh City won third prizes.

The competition received 212 entries from about 100 contestants nationwide, including professional and amateur cartoon artists and students.

The event was intended to raise public awareness on the importance of power saving through the drawing of humorous cartoons and caricatures.

The contest was organised by “Tap chi Nghe bao” (Journalism Magazine) under the Ho Chi Minh City Journalists Association and Vietnam Electricity in Ho Chi Minh City (EVN HCMC).

German jazz musician goes solo

German jazz musician Michael Schiefel will perform a free solo concert in the Hanoi Goethe Institute's courtyard on the evening of May 21.

Schiefel will perform songs from his latest solo album, My Home Is My Tent, released in 2010.

On May 22, he'll join artists from JumpforJazz, a group founded by saxophonist Nguyen Bao Long, which supports jazz and its musicians in Vietnam.

Schiefel, a singer, experiments with his distinctive voice on electronic loop devices, creating a choir made up solely of his voice.

Wanting to join the emerging jazz scene in Berlin, Schiefel, born in 1970, moved there in the early 1990s to study at the city's University of the Arts.

Since then, he has dazzled listeners at home and abroad with an array of solo and big band projects that have yielded a dozen albums over the last decade. He started teaching jazz vocals at the Weimar Academy of Music in 2001, becoming the youngest music professor in Germany.

Schiefel has released four solo albums using different electronic techniques.

In conjunction with his original compositions, his dynamic mixture of vocals and electronics produces unique expressions of passion, joy and alienation.

Schiefel also collaborates on a wide range of projects. He plays at numerous festivals and teaches master classes throughout Europe. He has also performed as a guest artist at the Goethe Institute in the US, Africa and Asia.

VNA/VNN