The Arts Council Korea will hold the Korean Arts Festival Week in Slovenia and Croatia from Monday to June 19 to showcase South Korea’s traditional and modern culture, the council said Friday.

The festival week will be held in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana and Croatia’s capital city of Zagreb and Dubrovnik under the slogan “Nasmeh Koreje (Smile of Korea).”

Kim Seong-jin, the conductor of the Seoul City Gukak Orchestra, will direct the National Opera Orchestra of Ljubljana for the opening concert on Tuesday. The HRT Orchestra of Croatia and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra will perform traditional music of South Korea and those countries on June 15 and 19, respectively.

Korean musicians will perform traditional Korean songs and play a range of musical instruments, including the geomungo, daegeum and gayageum, with the Croatian orchestras.

During the festival week celebrated South Korean novelist Shin Kyung-sook, author of the best-selling novel “Please Look After Mom,” will attend a book-reading event and have talks with local literary people.

The council said Shin’s novel will be translated into Slovenian and published in the Balkan states, which will contribute to the introduction of Korean literature in the region.

About 2 million copies of the Korean version of “Please Look After Mom” were sold in Korea after it was published in 2008. Last year, it was translated into English and released in the U.S.

During the festival week, there will also be a photo exhibition featuring Korean tourism, culture, industry, living and fashion, while 11 Korean films will be screened.

ARKO chairman Kwon Young-bin said the festival week will contribute to spreading the wave of Korean traditional music to the Balkan states. 

(Yonhap News)