ENG-1988 — Page 359

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RECREATION AND THE ARTS

committees under the council's umbrella, covering the areas of music, dance, drama, technical arts, business sponsorship and public relations, and cross discipline and finance. The council comprises 15 appointed and three official members.

On the advice of the council, five performing arts companies, namely, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society Limited, the Chung Ying Theatre Company, the Hong Kong Ballet Limited, the City Contemporary Dance Company and the Hong Kong Arts Festival Society Limited, received general support grants totalling $24.86 million this year. In addition, 1.7 million was awarded to 29 local performing arts groups and individual artists as project and other grants.

Since 1984, the council has been operating a report writing scheme whereby a pool of specialists in various performing arts forms are appointed to report on public performances in Hong Kong, providing a valuable pool of information to the council on standards attained in this field.

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In January, the council organised a logo design competition, and, has adopted the winning design as its official logo.

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra's concerts continued to attract large audiences in the City Hall, Tsuen Wan Town Hall, and Tuen Mun and Sha Tin town halls.

Under the direction of Music Director Kenneth Schermerhorn, Principal Guest Conductor Kenneth Jean, Resident Conductor Yip Wing-sie and guest conductors Grezgorz Nowak, Christopher Seaman, Andrew Davis, Richard Bradshaw and Teng Mu-hai, such distinguished artists as Barry Tuckwell, Dmitri Alexeev, Olli Mustonen, Howard Shelley, Sergei Edelman, Barry Douglas, Joaquin Achucarro, Peter Donohoe and Alexander Markov appeared with the orchestra.

The orchestra made a short tour of Japan in the spring, and gave highly successful concerts in four major cities to capacity audiences.

For the 1988-9 season, nine new musicians were added to the orchestra's roster from Hong Kong, the United States and the United Kingdom, expanding the orchestra from 87 to 94 players.

As in the past five years, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra opened the Arts Festival and performed an additional concert which featured the Japanese tour pro- gramme. The Urban Council's productions of 'Swan Lake' and 'La fil mal gardee' by the visiting Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet were accompanied by the orchestra.

Continuing to reach out into the community through schools concerts and other acitivites, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society has expanded its audience development section, which organised a 'Music in Drawing' competition with a newspaper, and attracted 400 entrants. A music correspondence course – the first of its kind here was organised with another newspaper. Pre-concert talks were organised on the day of concerts in the New Territories venues, giving people brief information on the programmes to concert- goers, and these were very well received.

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Membership of the Friends of the Philharmonic, the organisation for keen supporters of the orchestra, increased by 20 per cent and Friends celebrated the fifth anniversary of this important group this year.

Chung Ying Theatre Company

Chung Ying Theatre Company firmly established its reputation in the territory and experienced a very successful year in 1988.