Alma international guitar festival set to rock Hanoi

The second international guitar festival, known as Alma Hanoi International Festival, will take place at the Vietnam National Academy of Music at 77 Hao Nam Street between October 27-29 with contestants being drawn from all over the world.

The judges for the festival comprise of both famous Vietnamese and international artists.

In addition to live performances from contestants, the festival will include a wide range of activities such as workshops with international artists, a hands on demonstration in guitar making, and experiencing luxury guitars.

The event aims to promote the development of the guitar community within Hanoi, honour classical music, nurture new talented guitarists, and offer development opportunities to all guitar lovers.
Library opens free reading room for young readers

Young readers at the HCM City General Sciences Library’s new free reading room. — Photo courtesy of the library

The HCM City General Sciences Library has opened a new reading room serving young readers aged between five and 18.    

The room will offer a large collection of hundreds of documents, books, dictionaries, videos, cassette tapes and CDs about Vietnamese and foreign literature, music and science.

All information and photos have been digitised to offer quality services for readers. 

Computers, PCs, tablets and Lego Robots are also included.

The room’s librarians were trained by the Department of Education and Training.  

“Our reading room has several thousand books in different fields. We will add 300 new book titles per week. We can serve 400 readers a day,” said Đỗ Thị Mai Loan, deputy head of the library’s service room.  

“We hope our new reading room will attract and entertain young readers,” she added. 

Established in 1978, HCM City General Sciences Library is the region’s largest library and offers 2.7 million titles of documents, books, newspapers and magazines, not including collections of 7,000 publications printed from the 17th -19th century.

The library has more than 500,000 books, newspapers and journals, 4,000 microforms, CD-ROMs, music, maps, and videos.

Computers and telecommunication technology are also used to serve readers. 

The library serves as a deposit library for international organisations like the World Bank, UNESCO, and Agricultural Organisation. It also has an old book exchange agreement with more than 30 libraries and information centres across the globe.  

It plans to spend VNĐ15 billion (US$658,000) to digitise all of its items and connect with 24 district libraries in the city by 2020. 

Guitar fest in HCMC

The Saigon International Guitar Festival will be held from 7pm to 9:30pm on October 31 to November 4 at the HCM City Conservatory of Music on 112 Nguyễn Du Street, HCM City’s District 1. Photo ticketbox.vn

The Saigon International Guitar Festival will be held from 7pm to 9:30pm on October 31 to November 4 at HCM City Conservatory of Music on 112 Nguyễn Du Street in HCM City’s District 1.

The annual SIGF brings great guitar music to the public and inspires young guitarists.

Gerard Abiton, who performs regularly on international stages, will perform. He is regularly invited to international events, plays recitals, and chamber music events, and also plays with orchestras in many countries.

Abiton won the 37th International Contest of Musical Execution in Geneva and the "Franck Martin" special prize from the Musicians Association of Geneva. — VNS

Halloween Run to send shivers down your spine

The Halloween Scary Run 2018 will be held from 8pm to 10pm on October 27 at HCM City University of Sport in Linh Trung Ward in Thủ Đức District. Photo Ticketbox.vn

The Halloween Scary Run 2018 will be held from 8pm to 10pm on October 27 at HCM City University of Sport in Linh Trung Ward in the city’s Thủ Đức District.

This is the first cosplay running event to be held by Vietnam MTB Series, Dĩ An Town’s Department of Information, Culture and Sports in Bình Dương Province, and the HCM City University of Sport.

Visitors can cosplay as any character, and the run will take place under the trees of the University Village through scary obstacles: The Running Zombie. Zombie Water Station and Scary Halloween Decoration, leading to the spooky Zombie World.

Tickets are from VNĐ250,000 per person. 

Gathering to celebrate music, art and fashion 

A gathering to celebrate live electronic music, art and sustainable fashion will be held on October 20 at the same venue. — Photo courtesy of Bamboo Westlake

HỘI, a gathering to celebrate live electronic music, art and sustainable fashion, will be held on, October 20 at Bamboo Westlake in Hà Nội.

The event will feature local and international musicians, including Mutant Lounge: Lark Minkous, Tomes, L A k E S from the UK, Scobi Wan and audiOhm from the US; Đờ Tùng, Tiny Giant, Minh Nguyễn & TuanSS from Việt Nam, and Joee& I from the Philippines. 

A session with the Hanoi Life Drawing Society will also be among the event’s activities. Attendees can also enjoy a workshop on zine hosted by Hà Nội Zine Library. The sustainable fashion brand Sirens Thrift Store will introduce their apparel collection, while The Hanoi Social Club will offer healthy and delicious food and beverages.

HỘI will run from 4pm until very late. Bamboo Westlake is located in Alley 1 Quảng Bá Street, Tây Hồ District. Tickets are being pre-sold for VNĐ80,000 at the Hà Nội Social Club (6 Hội Vũ Street, Hoàn Kiếm District), DeN (49 Làng Yên Phụ, Tây Hồ District), and HUB Café (122 Ô Chợ Dừa Street, Đống Đa District). Tickets at the door for VNĐ100,000. 

Contest seeks most inspiring books for youth

The HCM City Book Pedestrian Street Company has launched a contest to seek the most inspiring books for Vietnamese youth. – Photo courtesy of the organisers

The HCM City Book Pedestrian Street Company on Wednesday launched a contest to seek the most inspiring books for Vietnamese youth.

The event is part of the city’s activities to celebrate the 66th anniversary of Việt Nam Publishing Day, falling on October 10.

Quách Thu Nguyệt, the company’s deputy director, said the contest would introduce good books to readers and promote the reading habit among the community.

Readers, publishers, book distributors, and book companies are eligible to take part in the contest.

Each person or an enterprise can vote for two to five book titles by November 15. All books are published in Việt Nam.

Participants can send their votes to http://bigtime.vn/binh-chon-sach-duong-sach-2018-3742, or they can vote directly on the Book Pedestrian Street in District 1.

On November 16, the organiser will provide a list of nominated titles to the public to vote for the best 20 titles. The vote will close on November 30.

The organiser and the jury will announce the 10 best titles at an awards ceremony on Book Pedestrian Street on January 6.

The organiser will award trophies to authors and publishers of the winning books.