Campus Digest

BUers honoured with Hong Kong Arts Development Awards

Tuesday, 4 July 2023

Four BUers were honoured with the 17th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in recognition of their achievements in arts. Dr Yip Wai-hong, Founding Head of the then Department of Music (now Academy of Music), former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and former Member of the Council, was awarded the Life Achievement Award; Dr Tsang Fan-yu, Assistant Professor of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, received the Award for Young Artist (Literary Arts); Mr Cheung Fei-fan, alumnus of the then Department of Cinema and Television (now Academy of Film), was named the Artist of the Year (Drama); and Mr Kong Hoi-kan, alumnus of the Academy of Visual Arts, received the Award for Young Artist (Visual Arts).

Dr Yip Wai-hong graduated from the Faculty of Music at the Yen-Ching University in Beijing. After settling in Hong Kong in 1961, he was invited to teach music at the then Hong Kong Baptist College. Known as “The Father of Children’s Choir” in Hong Kong, he founded the Hong Kong Children’s Choir and the Yip’s Children’s Choral and Performing Arts Centre in 1969 and 1983 respectively. Dr Yip is also the founder of the Pan Asia Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra. His compositions comprise choral, instrumental and commissioned Chinese and folk music pieces. He also served as a guest conductor of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra several times.

Dr Tsang Fan-yu’s publications include the novels Stand, Low Level Love, Silent Desire and Nothingness, Love in the Era of Post-human and the short story collection Three. An awardee of the City Literary Awards, the Intervarsity Creative Writing Competition and the Youth Literary Awards, as well as the winner of the Sing Tao Writing Competition in his early years, his writing takes various forms, including novels, modern poems, prose and criticism.

Dr Cheung Fei-Fan is a scriptwriter for stage, television and film, as well as a columnist and lyricist. He is currently the Dramaturg of Theatre Space and the Creative Director of Chasing Culture. He has penned scripts for well-known local theatre companies, including the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, The Nonsensemakers and the Actors’ Family, with his works being performed in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Canada, and Singapore. Lately, he has been dedicated to the development of musicals in Hong Kong.

Mr Kong Hoi-kan works full-time as a Chinese seal artist and is the founder of his studio “Saleforhonor”. Han tradition and contemporary beliefs form the axes of his work as he aspires to incorporate elements of the present day into seal-making. He has organised workshops, talks and art demonstrations for businesses and educational institutions, and his work features in the private collections of corporates and individual collectors. He held his first solo exhibition, A New Story to Tell, in 2017. His subsequent solo exhibitions include Salvation, Summoning, and Master of Obsession as he forges his creative trajectory in contemporary seal-making.