Museum of National History in Slaný
Masaryk Square 159, 274 01 Slaný, phone 312 522 209

1st April Monday at 18 o’clock
Gallery of Museum of National History in Slaný
Magic of Japanese gardens

Opening the exhibition of photographs of the well-known photographer Zdeněk Thoma.
Musical opening : Michiyo Keiko — soprano and Vítězslav Podrazil — piano.

PROGRAMM:

• Three Japanese folk songs
  • Sakura sakura
  • Narayama
  • Matsushima ondo
• Antonín Dvořák: Gipsy Melodies, a selection
  • When My Old Mother
  • And the Wood Is Silent
  • The String Is Tuned Up

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ZDENĚK THOMA was born in 1938 in Prague. He is a well-known photograph, journalist, traveller and adventurer and member of The Photograph Association and Journalist Syndicate in the Czech Republic. After one year-journey to Japan in 1970 Asia became his great love. He spent over six years of his life in 26 Asian countries, mainly in Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal and India. He is the author of photographs in the following publications: China (1991), The arts of Japanese gardens, Ikebana, bonsai and many more. His eight sets of photographs have been exposed during the last 20 years in more than 70 galleries and museums in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Austria and Japan. He visited Japan ten times: for the first time in 1970 and for the last time in 1998.

MICHIYO KEIKO Soprano Michiyo Keiko was born in Kobe, Japan. After studying with Professor Yasukazu Kondo at Chugoku College, she pursued her schooling at Prague’s Academy of Music, with Professor Naděžda Kniplová. Since 1996, she has sung for the summer productions of the Opera Mozart Group at Stavovské Theatre in Prague. Since the Opera Season 1996/97, she has also appeared as a guest at the Prague National Theatre Opera Company. She has given many performances in Japan, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Holland, Germany, Austria and the United States. As a competitor at the 1994 Dvořák International Competition at Karlovy Vary she was awarded among other prizes, the award for best rendition of a Czech song cycle (Slavický’s Ej, srdenko moje) and a Czech operatic aria (Jenůfa’s scene from Janáček’s opera of the same name). In 1996, Miss Keiko received the Masaryk Academy of Art Award.

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10th April Wednesday at 17 o’clock
Small gallery of the Museum of National History in Slaný
Japanese sword — weapon or piece of art

Discussion with Mr. Bohumil Planka, the Chief of Society for Japanese Sword Studying Nihonto Kenkyukan.