The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the indisputable authority playing the music by Slav maestros like Antonin Dvorak, made its Shanghai debut last night, closing the 9th China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the largest event of the kind in the country.

Having just celebrated its 110th birthday, the orchestra, well-known for its elegant and classical string ensemble and its unique Czech-style acoustics, was currently on its Asian performance tour.

"The month-long festival provided a communication platform for cultural dialogue among different countries and prominently displayed both classic and modern Chinese arts," said Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng at the closing ceremony before the Czech performance.

Sun said the festival, as the "busiest, largest and most prosperous performance season in China", would continue to contribute to the "great development and prosperity of the socialist culture".

The annual festival this year featured 55 performances, including symphony orchestras, dances, musicals and ballets from both home and abroad over the past month, with an audience totaling 400,000, said Chen Shenglai, president of the arts festival center at Sunday's press conference.

Chen said 18 paintings and artifacts exhibitions from more than140 arts institutions of 17 countries, including works by Rembrandt and selected artifacts from Spain's Prado Museums, were held during the festival, attracting more than 200,000 visits.

International artists were also invited to more than 3,000 street activities, carnivals and school arts events, attracting more than 1.5 million audience home and abroad, making the general public, especially children, can truly participate in the activities and enjoy arts, he said.

"Cultural weeks", such as that of Singaporean, Spain, Hungarian and China's northwest Qinghai Province, were also held along with the festival, introducing arts of a particular region to the public, Chen said.

Hosted by the Ministry of Culture and sponsored by Shanghai Municipal Government, the China Shanghai International Arts Festival has been serving as a cultural gala and an artistic pageant bridging China and the world annually since 1999.