The Hong Kong Jockey Club has raised domestic racing prize money for the 2023/24 season by eight percent. This will include increases across every class, from the Griffins to the Four-Year-Old Classic Series, and does not yet take into account bonuses awarded to the winner of the elite Group One LONGINES Hong Kong International Race Day and FWD Champions Day races.
The winning team of a local student competition that encouraged students to study the city’s history will receive a cash prize of HK$100,000 and the opportunity to showcase their project at the Museum of History. The prize was established to honour the memory of George B. Endacott, the late Lecturer of the Department of History who was responsible for re-establishing the subject as an important academic discipline in Hong Kong.
A controversial movie about the future of Hong Kong has won top prize at the city’s film awards, even though it was a box office hit only after a short cinema release and antagonised Beijing over its depiction of the semi-autonomous territory. The winner, Ten Years, is a series of vignettes based on residents’ worst fears for their future in the Chinese city as Beijing tightens its grip over freedom of expression and other rights in the territory.
China’s ruling Communist Party has been accused of using a new law to crack down on dissidents in Hong Kong, after it imposed a National Security Law that has led to several democracy activists being jailed. US lawmakers have called for an award to honor the work of these activists, as well as that of a Hong Kong journalist arrested over her reporting on the unrest, while also calling for more dialogue between the US and China to ensure a democratic transition in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) has become the first Asian ensemble to be named Classical Music Recording of the Year at the prestigious Gramophone Awards ceremony – considered to be “the Oscars of classical music” – in London last week. The award was for the HK Phil’s complete live recordings of Wagner’s Ring Cycle on Naxos records. The HK Phil thanked its supporters, including the HKSAR Government and principal patron the Swire Group, and music-lovers around the world for helping it to achieve this milestone.
