The Works：Art and culture funding in district councils & in the studio: pianist Alice Sara Ott

As you can’t fail to have noticed, Hong Kong’s elections for all 18 district councils took place last Sunday and it’s fair to say they considerably shook up the scene in terms of district politics. After the 2015 elections, pro-establishment candidates had controlled all councils. This week the pro-democracy camp gained a majority in 17 of the 18 district councils, taking 388 seats. Three artists and art practitioners, Clara Cheung, Susi Law and Wong Tin-yan ran for the first time. They all won in their districts. Those results may well have a knock-one effect on Hong Kong’s arts and cultural scene. Since 2013, the government has been running the Signature Project Scheme, under which a one-off grant of HK$100 million is given to each district to implement projects. Apart from those one-off payments, additional yearly funding from different programmes also injects extra cash to promote art at a community level. But not everyone’s convinced the money has always been spent in the best interests of neighbourhood arts and culture.

Both Alice Sara Ott and her younger sister, Mona Asuka Ott are professional pianists. They were born in Munich to a Japanese mother, who had studied piano in Tokyo, and a father who is a German civil engineer. Both went on to study with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. Alice began studying the instrument when she was four and had already won awards in Germany by the age of seven. Today, as one of the world’s most in-demand soloists, Alice regularly works with leading conductors and orchestras. On Tuesday, she performed in Hong Kong for the first time in a one-night only recital organised by Premiere Performances. She’s with us right now.