What are they after?
"Since we're about to break up after ten months of practice, let's put on a few good shows and give the audience something to appreciate." Kuo Meng-yung, director of the Artists' Chorus, was delivering a pep talk to his singers in a little church they had borrowed to rehearse in on Taipei's Lung Chiang Rd.
In fact, the one who needed the most encouragement at the moment was Kuo himself. While taking a leave of absence from Chinese Culture University to study voice and choral directing on a government scholarship in Paris, he dreamed of forming a first-rate choral group on his return to Taiwan. Since amateur choruses had always had a hard time improving because they kept losing members, he had decided to give each singer NT$1,000 (about $40) a month of his own money for transportation expenses as an inducement to stay on. Although the fee was nominal in itself, when multiplied by forty members over ten months it had exhausted his savings and he could no longer go on.
That was when a senior figure in vocal music circles who admired the group brought along several strangers to hear them rehearse. On introduction Kuo learned they were top managers from the Paolyta Co. Ltd., among them the boss, Ch'en Ch'uan-huang.
The senior figure had heard of the chorus's difficulties, it seems, and knowing that Ch'en intended to support an artistic group, had brought them together. Yet who would have guessed Ch'en's terms would be so generous? He offered to grant NT$8 million a year (around US$300,000), to provide six professional managers, and to set up a department of music and cultural affairs in his company for the "Paolyta Artists' Chorus." Kuo would serve as the group's director and receive a managerial level salary. Chorus members would receive a stipend of NT$4,000 to NT$6,000 a month, comparable to that of other top-paying choruses in the country. And Ch'en would furthermore provide spacious quarters in the city as a permanent office and rehearsal site for the chorus and the music and cultural affairs department.
"We agreed on the terms in half an hour. All the way home in the car I still couldn't believe it was true," Kuo recalls, his pudgy face even now reflecting incredulity.
The Paolyta Artists' Chorus has indeed lived up to Ch'en's expectations. Besides being a sellout at home, the group brought back a silver trophy from an international choral competition in Japan. And thanks to its firm footing and growing reputation, a recent drive to attract non-stipend-receiving members actually brought in more than eighty new voices.
When the case of the Paolyta Chorus is mentioned, many workers in the arts say that Kuo was really in luck to have found a "sugar daddy" to help him. In fact, anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the media lately will have discovered that Kuo is not the only lucky fellow around. More and more businesses on Taiwan have begun to support artistic and cultural activities in a big way.
In September, for instance, Citibank of Taipei put up NT$6 million (about US$230,000) to help bring the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to Taiwan as part of its Asian tour. Evergreen Transportation, besides backing the Ch'eng Ming Chorus, established the Chang Jung-fa Foundation music scholarships to help send talented young musicians overseas for further training. And a cultural foundation set up by the Chi Mei Industrial Co., Ltd, which last year donated NT$300 million in support of artistic and cultural activities, began planning to acquire world-class violins by renowned makers to provide to needy musicians.
As for the static arts, the Walsin Lihwa Electric Wire and Cable Co. has supported the painter Yang En-sheng for four years, who in turn has produced a hundred paintings of the rare birds of Taiwan. And another corporate art foundation is providing NT$50,000 a month each to a pair of outstanding young painters so that they can concentrate all-out on their work. After two years it will sponsor a show to exhibit the paintings they have created.
"It seems like everybody has become enthusiastic now, but actually I received a lot of support from corporations when I started holding the international art festival ten years ago," says Hsu Po-yun, president of New Aspect Promotion Corp., who points to a list of 38 sponsoring firms on the program for the second international art festival.
The most well-known example of corporate support for the arts on Taiwan is probably that given to conductor Kuo Mei-chen by Cathay Investment & Trust Company in setting up the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, and the failure of that project led to a once-bitten twice-shy syndrome among many businessmen and workers in the arts. "There were too few examples of successful cooperation in the past on Taiwan, and no one understood what the rules of the game were," say Fu Pen-chun, a director of public relations at Ogilvy Mather Company, who points out that an understanding of one another's expectations and viewpoints is most important.
Businesses in the past rather expected that their support for the arts would directly spur sales, such as the firm whose support for the Cloud Gate Dance Ensemble was conditioned on the troupe filming a commercial for it.
"That was like asking them to prostitute themselves. How could they agree?" Fu Pen-chun remarks. If a company wants to spur sales, it should take out advertising directly. Support for the arts is a long-term investment in raising the firm's corporate image rather than a way to produce instant results. In a similar way, artists often cause their sponsors grief because of financial ineptitude, a misunderstanding of the nature of business, and unrealistic expectations.
"An artist may not have considered that a firm's earnings belong to its stockholders. We have to account to them for every penny we spend," says Alice Ju, a public affairs officer at Citibank, who adds that the Taipei branch sent a thick report back to its headquarters in New York after the New York Philharmonic performed in Taiwan.
Receiving favorable attention in the media and burnishing the corporate image are two of the reasons that businesses have become increasingly keen on supporting artistic and cultural activities recently. Yet another is a real interest in the arts that many younger executives have who have taken over the businesses from their fathers.
Just as businessmen have stepped closer to the arts, so many workers in the arts have begun to pay more attention to business and to running their groups on a sound basis.
Tzong-Ching Ju is a good example.
Intending to turn his Ju Percussion Group into a professional company within a few years, Ju has set up the Ju Percussion Group Foundation to solicit outside support and provide additional revenue besides a good box office.
"If even such topnotch groups as Cloud Gate and Lan Ling had to shut down, I thought, who dares say how his own group might fare?" Ju relates, adding what might startle some in the art world: "I recently asked a management consulting firm to diagnose any problems that come up with the foundation in the future."
Whether by coincidence or a fine feel for the social pulse, the Council for Cultural Planning and Development under its chairman, Kuo Wei-fan, recently sent an open letter to the CEOs of Taiwan's top 1,000 companies urging the business world to do more to support art and cultural activities.
Taiwan's businesses had enabled the island to achieve an economic miracle, the letter stated, against which its cultural development is comparatively lagging behind, leading to undesirable social effects. Now business can help build up the island's cultural resources to achieve a "cultural miracle."
With robbery and extortion on the rise, crime has gradually joined environmental and labor problems as one of the biggest obstacles to business investors.
"The government has to apply the two methods of blockage and rechanneling," says Yin Chang-chung, a section chief at the Council for Cultural Planning and Development. Besides cracking down on criminals and weapons, it should use the power of art and culture to improve public morals and make society more harmonious and pure. If businesses will strive harder toward this end, they will end up benefiting not only society but also themselves.
"Businesses have another choice besides pulling out, don't they?" he says.
Maybe it's just as Fu Pen-chun says: Many corporations in other countries only began to assume responsibility for supporting the arts after many many years of operation, while firms on Taiwan, still in the take-off stage, may lack both the will and the means to do the same.
But today, at a time when Taiwan no longer looks for economic miracles but rather for protracted growth, the road along which art and business can walk hand in hand seems ever closer.
[Picture Caption]
These impressive letters were sent out by Kuo Wei-fan, chairman of the Council for Cultural Planning and Development, to mobilize support for the arts.
Walsin Lihwa Electric Wire and Cable Co. supported artist Yang En-sheng in producing a hundred paintings of the rare birds of Taiwan. Chairman of the Board Arthur Y.C. Chiao (at right) dropped in for a visit on the day of the show.
The new generation of business leaders are themselves partial to the arts, making corporate support for the arts even more prevalent. This is Douglas Tong Hsu, the president of Far Eastern Textile.
Well-heeled financial institutions are one of the industries most able to provide support to the arts.
Hsu Po-yun, who has organized the international arts festival in Taipei since 1980, is the elder statesman among local performing arts agents.
Citibank supported the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in coming to Taiwan, at the same time earning a lot of favorable attention with a specialized public relations campaign. (photo courtesy of Citibank)
The traditional performing arts are favorite candidates for corporate sup port. (Sinorama file photo)
Now that they have received full backing from Paolyta Co., the Artists' Chorus can Perform and practice without any worries for the future.
Tzong-ching Ju has set up a foundation run on a business basis to make sure that the good intentions of benefactors are put to the best use.
When corporate support makes ticket prices more affordable to the public and helps the arts reach new heights, society as a whole is the winner.
The Contemporary Legend Theater, which achieved instant success with Kingdom of Desire, has been invited to perform overseas but needs corporate help with travel expenses before it can go. (Sinorama file photo)
Walsin Lihwa Electric Wire and Cable Co. supported artist Yang En-sheng in producing a hundred paintings of the rare birds of Taiwan. Chairman of the Board Arthur Y.C. Chiao （at right） dropped in for a visit on the day of the show.
Walsin Lihwa Electric Wire and Cable Co. supported artist Yang En-sheng in producing a hundred paintings of the rare birds of Taiwan. Chairman of the Board Arthur Y.C. Chiao （at right） dropped in for a visit on the day of the show.
The new generation of business leaders are themselves partial to the arts, making corporate support for the arts even more prevalent. This is Douglas Tong Hsu, the president of Far Eastern Textile.
Well-heeled financial institutions are one of the industries most able to provide support to the arts.
Hsu Po-yun, who has organized the international arts festival in Taipei since 1980, is the elder statesman among local performing arts agents.
Hsu Po-yun, who has organized the international arts festival in Taipei since 1980, is the elder statesman among local performing arts agents.
Citibank supported the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in coming to Taiwan, at the same time earning a lot of favorable attention with a specialized public relations campaign. （photo courtesy of Citibank）
The traditional performing arts are favorite candidates for corporate sup port. （Sinorama file photo）
The traditional performing arts are favorite candidates for corporate sup port. （Sinorama file photo）
Now that they have received full backing from Paolyta Co., the Artists' Chorus can Perform and practice without any worries for the future.
Tzong-ching Ju has set up a foundation run on a business basis to make sure that the good intentions of benefactors are put to the best use.
When corporate support makes ticket prices more affordable to the public and helps the arts reach new heights, society as a whole is the winner.
The Contemporary Legend Theater, which achieved instant success with Kingdom of Desire, has been invited to perform overseas but needs corporate help with travel expenses before it can go. （Sinorama file photo）
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