Over 200 ca tru artists to join festival

About 200 artists, singers and musicians from 21 Ca Tru (a kind of chamber music singing) club nationwide will participate in the National Ca Tru Club Festival 2009, to be held from October 6 to 8 at the Vietnam Art Exhibition Centre in Hanoi.
The festival is held in anticipation of the 1000th anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi and is to welcome the submission of Ca Tru files to UNESCO for recognition of “intangible cultural asset”.
Artists attending the festival have to undergo two rounds of tests, one compulsory theme and one free choice theme.
Also within the festival, there will be an area for exhibition in praise of Ca Tru art. The exhibition will set up a cultural space similar to that for old Ca Tru performances. Following the 2007 Ca Tru Festival, this festival is a meaningful event that promote national identify of Vietnam.
Ca Tru has a long history, and old documents show that it started in the 15th century at the latest. The singing genre started as folklore, and then became court music and back to be folklore again. Ca Tru has been lost for a while, but is now being revived. Many provinces have now restored and preserved the art of Ca Tru singing.