Beginning with a music festival by elementary and junior high school students on Saturday, October 5, this event featured three exhibitions of paintings, ceramics and calligraphy, as well as concert-hall performances that included traditional Japanese dance, hula dance and wadaiko Japanese drumming on weekends during the festival.
To mark the Hamura City Culture Festival’s 50th year this year, the festival also included special programs: exhibitions entitled “My Dreams” and “Leaders” featuring etegami (“picture letter”) hand-painted postcards expressing people’s dreams for the future; “Getting to know Kyrgyzstan,” a lecture on Kyrgyzstan (the Kyrgyz Republic)reflecting Hamura City’s status as a registered Olympic “host town” for athletes from Kyrgyzstan; and the opera “Carmen” featuring singers with a connection to Hamura City, an open-call-based citizens’ choir, and the city orchestra.