A special concert in commemoration of the 200th birthday of talented Polish composer Federich Chopin will start at 8pm on March 12 in the Hanoi Opera House.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung has approved the opening of the Thang Long Royal Citadel Relic Site for visitors on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi.

A new exhibition is taking place at the Bui Gallery in downtown Hanoi to showcase the underlying mysteries on the city.

The Hanoi Craft Week 2010, entitled “A thousand years of quintessence” is taking place at the Friendship Cultural Palace in Hanoi with the participation of 500 craft villages.

New titles by both local and international writers will be a treat that avid readers look forward to the opening of the sixth Ho Chi Minh Book Fair later this month.

The Republic of Korea’s conductor Lim Jun-o and violinist Paik Jae-jin will perform with the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera in a concert at HCM City’s Opera House on March 9.

HCM City art lovers are in for a treat with two new exhibitions, one of which displays works by 44 women painters to greet International Women’s Day on March 8.

A group of US students from Loyola Chicago University will go to Ho Chi Minh City during the fall semester from September-December to attend lectures on Vietnam’s culture, history, society, economy and politics.  

With 12,823 Vietnamese students in the US, Vietnam is one of the top 10 countries with the largest number of students in the US, according to the International Institute of Education (IIE).

Five Vietnamese short films will be chosen for screening at the 5th Cinema Symposium at the University of California at Los Angeles on April 18.  

Authorities of Italy’s Florence province and its cities of Trento, Milan and Genoa have pledged to actively celebrate the millennium anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi.  

Educators and experts have called for reforms in the administration of local universities as a necessary step to improve the quality of education for the 2009-10 academic year.

An ancient Cham tower has been discovered in Ban Binh district in the southern province of Binh Thuan, said Nguyen Xuan Ly, director of the provincial museum.

Japan will provide funding for a project on upgrading displays and audiovisual equipment for the museum of animals of the University of Natural Sciences.

An exhibition showcasing films that highlight the image of Vietnamese women in wartime and in the process of national reconstruction opened on March 5 in Hanoi.

The management board of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park said that film makers from the US prestigious National Geographic magazine will shoot a film about the Son Dong grotto, the largest one in the National Park, starting on March 11.

The film Choi voi (Adrift), directed by Bui Thac Chuyen, is being shown at a Film Festival in Beijing, China.

The Australian consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and the city of Melbourne announced results of the latter’s 2010 Young Artist Grants Programme for Vietnamese artist on March 4.

The HCM City-based Vietbooks and Vietnam News Agency’s Publishing House have released a collection of Vietnamese records.

On March 4, 1,000 Vietnamese entrepreneurs joined a crowd of 3,000 people at Bai Dinh pagoda, the largest in Southeast Asia, to pray for the country’s peace and development.

The second International Kite Festival will be held at the Bien Dong Tourist Area in Vung Tau City from March 25-29, which is expected to attract participants from 30 countries around the world.

A yearbook on Hanoi’s 1,000-year history and cultural relics has recently been published by the Publishing House of Culture and Information.

A huge rice-cake was carried from Phu Minh town, Phu Xuyen district, Hanoi to Bai Dinh pagoda in Ninh Binh province on the morning of March 3 to welcome the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi and honour the famous Quan Ganh trade village.

The Republic of Korea’s Nanta show (a kitchen utensils art performance) and its Everland tourism complex were introduced to Hanoi’s tour operators on March 2.  

Japanese pianist Tamura Hibiki will play Piano Concerto No 4 at the Hanoi Opera House on March 3-4 under the baton of Austrian conductor Christoph Campestrini, who has worked with more than 80 symphony orchestras around the world.

The Vietnamese Embassy, in coordination with the Embassies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asian Cultural Network (ACN), organised the fourth ASEAN Bazaar and Tourism Exhibition in Kuwait on February 27.

The “superman acrobat” performance given by 8 artists from the Vietnamese Circus Federation (VCF) has won a gold medal at the 3rd International Circus Festival in Albacete, Spain, from February 14-25.  

Tens of thousands of visitors have flocked to the Long Tong (Going to the Field) festival of the Tay ethnic people in Na Hang district of the northern mountain province of Tuyen Quang.

More than 500 Vietnamese newspapers, including Spring and Tet (Lunar New Year) editions, are on display in Paris, making a hit with French readers and bringing some of the spirit of the homeland’s spring to overseas Vietnamese.

HCM City has announced a list of its top 100 attractions following a poll of visiting tourists in a campaign that lasted more than three months.