Traditional music performance to welcome New Year

Ca tru performance at Hanoi's Thien Ngan Temple.

A traditional music performance will be held at the V-Art Club in Ha Noi on January 1 to welcome the New Year.

Apart from showcasing traditional genres such as ca tru (ceremonial singing) and xam (ballads once sung by blind buskers), the event will also feature pop songs based on folk music that will be accompanied by traditional instruments.

Famous singers including Pham Thi Hue, Mai Tuyet Hoa, Khoi Minh and Giang Son will participate in the concert.

Thirty per cent of the money from ticket sales will be earmarked for disadvantaged children.

The show will start at 8pm at the V-Art Club, located at 75 Tran Hung Dao Street.

Toyota grants VN music scholarships

Toyota Motor Viet Nam (TMV) and Toyota Viet Nam Foundation (TVF) yesterday granted scholarships worth VND510 million (about US$23,000) for 85 students of music in Viet Nam.

A ceremony was held in Ha Noi to award the first package of scholarships for 37 students of the Viet Nam National Academy of Music (VNAM), the Tay Bac Arts and Culture College, and the Viet Bac Arts and Culture College.

Each student received VND6 million (nearly $300) compared with VND4 million last year.

The scholarship aimed to promote and encourage music students to be more active and creative, said Yoshihisa Maruta, chairman of the TVF and general director of Toyota Viet Nam.

"This year's scholarship also creates more chances for excellent students to practice and have performances with professional orchestras," Maruta said.

Truong Thi Ngan Ha, 13, from the Piano Department of Ha Noi National Academy of Music, who is among those received scholarships, is always an excellent student.

She won the Toyota scholarship last year; the first prize of International Music Competition "Pietro Argento" held in Italy early this year; the second prize from the first Chopin Piano Competition in Bangkok last year; the gold medal from the Festival Piano Cheonan Korea 2012 and many others.

Ha said she is very happy to receive the Toyota scholarship again.

All proceeds from the two music programs Toyota Classics 2015 and Toyota Concert Tour 2015 organised by TMV have been used for this year's scholarships.

Speaking at the ceremony, Dao Manh Hung from the Ministry of Education and Training said, "Toyota Scholarship for Vietnamese Young Music Talents has been really encouraging the study spirit of musical students. We highly appreciate this effort of TMV and believe that the scholarship will continue growing in the future."

Mother Goddess lives on in Nam Dinh

An exhibition on the Vietnamese Mother Goddesses religion has been opened in the northern province of Nam Dinh with the aim of helping people understand more about the folk religion.

The exhibition, jointly held by the Nam Dinh Provincial Museum and the Vietnamese Women Museum, consists of three exhibition spaces: Nam Dinh – the centre of the Mother Goddess religion, identity and value of the religion, and research about the religion.

A spiritual and cultural space was set up at the provincial museum to provide an insight into the distinctive features and values of the ritual of worshiping Mother Goddesses in Viet Nam.

The religion reflects great moral values that remind people to respect their origins, with the mother placed at the heart. It is a combination of various aspects of folk culture, including music, language, traditional handicrafts, architecture, costumes, and cuisine expressed through the rituals and worshiping practice.

Nam Dinh is considered as the largest centre of pilgrimage for followers of the Mother Goddesses worship with more than 20 temples and shrines around the Phu Day complex in Vu Ban District. There are 287 temples and vestiges relating to the belief across the province.

According to the Nam Dinh Museum's Director Nguyen Van Thu, the worship of mother goddesses is a long-standing product of wet rice cultivators' perception of their surrounding natural environment.

This religion, which combines many local music and art forms, is popularly known through "hau dong", a sacred yet joyful ritual where the gods are incarnated in mediums to give blessings to the followers.

Viet Nam is seeking UNESCO recognition of this distinctive belief as intangible cultural heritage of humanity.