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PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
305
Mr. Pao Ping-wing, Chairman of THE CULTURE SELECT Committee, replied (in Cantonese):—The first part of Mr. Chung's question is about the direct funding provided to the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society by the Council.
The actual amount of subsidy provided to the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society for the year 1997/98 was $63,730,000 and the approved subsidy for 1998/99 is $68,714,000. Besides, the Council also sponsors the major part of the Orchestra's concerts staged at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and the City Hall by waiving the venue and ticketing charges; the total amount waived for last year was $1,794,349 and that for the current year is estimated to be $1,790,000.
Moreover, some parts of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre are rented to the Society for use as office, store room, library and practice room at a nominal rent of $1 per month. Theoretically speaking, a rental subsidy of $1,503,000 is granted to the Society by the Council each year. Hence, the total subsidies granted by the Council to the Society for 1997/98 and 1998/99 are $67,027,349 and $72,007,000 respectively.
The second part of the question asks whether the Council has hired the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra to perform in the Council's programmes.
Being the sole professional orchestra in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra has higher artistic attainments than the other symphony orchestras in the territory. In the past two years, it has been invited to perform at the Council's large scale open-air concert—'Symphony under the Stars'. Besides, the Orchestra was also hired to provide live accompaniment for major programmes organized or sponsored by the Council in the light of artistic requirements of the programmes.
In 1997/98, the Council programmes for which the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra was hired to provide live accompaniment included the opera 'Aida' and performances by the China National Symphony Orchestra Chorus and the Hong Kong Ballet. Together with the fee for the Orchestra's performance in 'Symphony under the Stars', the total amount paid to the Orchestra by the Council was $2,400,877. In 1998/99, a total amount of $2,411,879 will be paid to the Orchestra for performing in similar programmes which include the opera 'La Boheme', 'Symphony under the Stars' and performances by the Hong Kong Ballet.
The last part of the question is about the areas in which the Council's direct funding for the Society is spent.
The Council's direct funding to the Society is mainly spent on its daily operational expenditure including salaries, administrative expenses and all expenses relating to the staging of concerts, such as promotion and publicity expenses and guest artists' fees, etc. In fact, no hard and fast rules have been
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