Seven young talents awarded HK Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund Scholarships (with photo)
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The following is issued on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund:

     The Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund (the Fund) held a ceremony today (July 24) to award scholarships to young talents in music and dance.

     Scholarships were awarded to seven recipients this year, namely Miss Cheng Hiu-man, Mr John Lee, Mr Liu Tsz-ho, Mr Liu Tung-bo, Mr So Ho-chi, Miss Peggy Wu and Miss Yu Hiu-tung. Six of the awardees attended the scholarship awards ceremony and shared their thoughts. They said they were grateful for the Fund's support and committed themselves to making the best use of their opportunity to pursue further studies in Hong Kong or abroad.

     This year's scholarships, totalling about $3.33 million, will support the awardees to pursue further education in the field of music or dance in Hong Kong or overseas, enabling them to contribute to the development of arts in Hong Kong upon the completion of their studies.

     Attending the ceremony were the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Fund, Dr Pang King-chee; the Head of Charities (Grant Making - Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture) of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Ms Rhoda Chan; the Principal Assistant Secretary for Home Affairs, Ms Sandy Cheung; members of the Board of Trustees of the Fund Mr Philip Kan, Ms Rosita Lee, Mr Dennis Ngan, Professor Qin Rong, Ms Selina Tsang and Professor Adrian Walter; chairperson and member respectively of the music audition panel Professor Sharon Choa and Professor Ray Wang; and the chairman of the dance audition panel, Mr Yang Yuntao.

     The Fund was set up in 1980 with a $10 million donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust for the promotion and development of music and dance education and training in Hong Kong. In 1994, a further capital injection of $22 million was provided by the Trust to meet increasing demand for financial support. In 2014, the Trust approved additional funding support of over $16 million for the Fund to implement a six-year pilot project, which included the launching of a local postgraduate scholarship scheme in addition to the well-established non-local studies scholarship scheme, as well as the setting up of an awardees association for the scholarship recipients of the Fund. To date the Fund has awarded 313 music and dance scholarships amounting to about $60.2 million.

Ends/Monday, July 24, 2017
Issued at HKT 19:09

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