HKU Bulletin June 2006 (Vol. 7 No. 3)

16 17 Passion Shared Members of the Faculty of Arts have been sharing their passion for music with listeners of a local radio station. A series of Saturday morning radio programmes exploring artistic trends in music, theatre, poetry and the visual arts has proved a runaway success. Arts…Talk…Music , aired on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) throughout April and May, saw members of or Faculty of Arts considering issues such as ‘The Unknown Schubert’, ‘The Ballad in Folk Song and Poetry’, and ‘Music, Power, Love and Evil in the 20th Century.’ This series was intended to promote the arts in general and, more specifically, our Faculty of Arts, according to Dr Manolete Mora, Associate Dean of the Faculty and Associate Professor of the Department of Music. “Hong Kongkers have relatively little contact and dialogue with professionals working within the Arts and Humanities, so this initiative was envisaged as one of several Arts Faculty efforts to reach out to the public, to showcase the Arts and Humanities, and to highlight the importance of the Arts and Humanities disciplines in a progressive, open-minded society,” he said. “Some programmes presented music as well as profiles of artists and examined arts issues and trends in music, theatre, poetry, visual and multi-media arts, as well as culture, art history, language, literary criticism, philosophy, and history,” he added. With contributions from staff in several departments the series has proved a bit of a hit. In contributing to the project, staff have been able to share their intellectual and artistic interests with the general public. The radio series not only gave Arts col leagues an opportunity to present various types of music and share their scholarly background and thinking about a broad range of social and intellectual issues, it also helped give a more public face to the Faculty of Arts and show their enormous diversity. “A characteristic which all progressive and leading universities share,” said Mora. “The feedback from radio professionals has been enthusiastic and the members of the publ ic who have responded have done so positively. Indeed, someone from Princeton University heard the programmes and would like to broadcast them through Princeton University radio, although this is yet to be confirmed,” said Mora. And although there has not been any formal decision to run another series, both Arts faculty members and RTHK staff are interested in presenting another, different set of programmes sometime in the future. Staff and topics included: Stephen Matthews, Giorgio Biancorosso, David Clarke, Page Richards, Wayne Cristaudo, Manolete Mora, Peter Cave, and Chad Hansen covered diverse themes and topics including: ‘The Unknown Schubert’, ‘Film Music Without Film’, ‘Music and the Encounter with Cultural Difference’, ‘The Ballad in Folk Song and Poetry’, ‘Music, Power, Love and Evil in the 20th century’, ‘The Latin Tinge’, ‘Music in Japanese Life’, and ‘Is Musical Value Relative?’, respectively. Hong Kong International Literary Festival A new prize to promote Asian writing was announced at the University in March. T he sponsors of Hong Kong’s annual International Literary Festival used The University of Hong Kong as a platform to announce a new prize of Asian writers. The Man Group – which also sponsors of Britain’s Booker Prize – launched the Man Asian Literary Prize, in March, at the Rayson Huang Theatre. The University has long been a supporter of the festival and every year hosts a number of speakers. This year Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and 2005 Booker prize winner, John Banville, gave lectures. The aim of the new prize is to bring the work of Asian writers to the attention of the world literary community, to facilitate publishing in Asia and to highlight the region’s developing role in world literature. As a joint project with the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the prize will be awarded to unpublished works in English and will include those translated from other languages. The first winner will be announced in autumn of next year. Matt Dillon, managing director of Man Investments Hong Kong, said: “There is a wonderful synergy between our Group’s sponsorship of the Man Booker award and the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. “We are very aware of the Festival’s ambitions to develop regionally and to encourage Asian writers. Through this prize we aim to foster the publication of new Asian voices in English and to help make those voices more widely heard.” AsianWritersAdvance onWorldLiterature ARTS