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TSMC Education and Culture Foundation
The TSMC Education and Culture Foundation (TSMC Foundation) is led by TSMC Vice Chairman F.C. Tseng, who serves as the Foundation’s Chairman. Established in 1998 to coordinate the Company’s financial sponsorship as part of its efforts in corporate social responsibility, the Foundation devotes its resources to education, promotion of the arts and cultural events, community building, and the employee Volunteer Program.
In 2015, the TSMC Foundation contributed over NT$68.4 million to its long-term projects for arts promotion and humanity education. In 2015, the Foundation sponsored the National Theatre and Concert Hall to invite the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to visit Taiwan and, with the National Symphony Orchestra, jointly produce the opera Fidelio. Both of these performances provided the Taiwan people with extraordinary performing arts. With contributions such as these, the Foundation hopes to lead the trend of promoting the arts and enriching the spiritual life of society in general.
Commitment to Education
Education is the most important priority for the progress of a nation. The TSMC Foundation tailors its various programs to target a whole range of educational needs at various age levels.
At the primary school level, the Foundation emphasizes aesthetics education, and for many years has contributed resources to a variety of children’s art education programs, including the “TSMC Aesthetic Tour,” which, over the past 13 years, has taken more than 90,000 children from remote townships to visit the National Palace Museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and other fine arts sites.
At the high school level, to enhance the student appreciation of the sciences and humanities, the Foundation supports and organizes science camps, contests, and humanity activities. The Foundation continued to sponsor The Center for Advanced Science Education at National Taiwan University to hold the competition, “TSMC Cup – Competition of Scientific Story Telling”. This year the competition focused on “light” and invited senior high school students to read respected books on the subject, write essays on reading and thought, and deliver short scientific talks on cultivating logical thinking, argumentation and presentation.
The Foundation also supports three science talent camps – Wu Chien-Shiung Science Camp, Wu Ta-Yu Science Camp and Madame Curie Senior High School Chemistry Camps – to provide talented students with the opportunity to meet and learn from the world-class scientists with the goal of inspiring the students and helping them realize their potential. This year the TSMC Foundation also sponsored the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) to organize Taiwan International Science Fair, from which two Taiwan groups were selected to participate in the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Netherlands. One team earned a gold medal and the second earned the bronze medal.
In the humanities, the TSMC Foundation supports “Hope Reading” of the CommonWealth Foundation that donates good books to 30 junior high schools of Taiwan’s remote townships to promote the habit of reading among underprivileged teenagers. The Foundation also held “the TSMC Youth Literature Award” and “TSMC Youth Calligraphy Contest” to showcase literacy and excellence in art of talented youth and enrich their humanity.
At the college level, in addition to endowing chair professorships to enhance academic research at Taiwan universities, the TSMC Foundation continued to sponsor the “Rising Sun Plan” of National Tsing Hua University and the “Sunflower Plan”. To bridge the unbalanced educational resources allocation caused by the gap between rich and poor, the plan provides underprivileged students a chance to enter top-notch universities with financial supports. And to encourage young writers, the Foundation continued to collaborate with the INK Literature Magazine to bestow the 3rd TSMC Literature Award attracting hundred submitted works.
Promotion of Arts and Culture
The TSMC Education and Culture Foundation has made considerable efforts over the years to promote the arts and culture. In addition to actively assisting prominent Taiwanese art groups to gain recognition on the international stage, TSMC also provides support for performances held in Taiwan by arts groups from around the world, giving the Taiwanese a chance to view the world’s finest right at home. This year the Foundation sponsored the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to visit Taiwan second time since this permanent performing group visited Taiwan in 2006. Led by the prominent conductor, Gustavo Gimeno, the orchestra presented two symphonic classics: Beethoven’s Pastorale and Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique. The Foundation also collaborated with the National Theatre and Concert Hall to create an exhibition tracing the Orchestra’s history in the Concert Hall lobby, to invite 100 remote townships students to attend the concert, and to organize a live broadcast of the concert on the Arts Plaza of National Theater and Concert Hall, attracting an audience of over 5,000.
In addition to inviting international orchestras, the TSMC Foundation also supported Taiwan’s performing arts groups. Besides the TSMC Hsin-chu Arts festival of regular invitations, the Foundation continued to sponsor National Symphony Orchestra to collaborate with Zurich Opera Theatre to present Beethoven’s one and only opera, Fidelio. This exquisite opera production not only amazed the audience but, more importantly, also provided Taiwan performing arts groups with invaluable international theater production experience and uplifting their performing arts.
The TSMC Foundation has a long-term commitment to promote Chinese Traditional Classics. Through lectures, broadcast programs and audio books, the Foundation relives the Classics that enable audiences to easily understand traditional Chinese philosophy and wisdom. Since 2008, the TSMC Foundation has invited Professor Hsin Yih-yun to produce Chinese Classics broadcast programs on the IC Radio Broadcasting Station. The programs are extremely popular and followed by Chinese audiences all over the world. The Foundation also held innovative lectures with unique decorations and arrangements to narrow the gap between the audience and the speakers and let the audience feel the appeal of the Classics. Dream of Red Chamber Lectures delivered by Professor Huang Yi-Long were conducted in tea banquets so participants could feel the atmosphere of an oriental salon. The Foundation also invited Professor Li Hon-chi, Emeritus Professor of New York University, to introduce the audience to the Protestant Reformation Era in a coffee shop.
Building Community by Arts
The Foundation has long played the role of “fine arts planter” to spread the seeds of fine arts to the community through continuous art activities. At TSMC’s site communities, Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan, the Foundation annually organizes “TSMC Hsinchu Arts Festival” to present a broad spectrum of performances to meet the communities’ interests in art.
The theme of 2015 TSMC Hsin-chu Arts Festival was ”Hero”. The Foundation invited top artists to share their heroic way to achieve their goals by theatrical arts, music, poetry and video. Promoting Chinese theatrical arts is always one of the main goals of the Festival. Therefore, the Festival invited the Xin-Xin Nanguan Ensemble, the GuoGuang Opera Company and Professor Huang Yi-Long to introduce audience to the beauty of Chinese Traditional Arts by Nanguan Music, Chinese Opera and History. Also the Festival organized a variety of marvelous concerts by prestigious musicians, including the English cellist Steven Isserlis, French classical pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and the National Symphony Orchestra. The NSO laureate conductor Gunther Herbig and the Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, the winner of the 2005 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, performed the Beethoven’s Classic Symphony Eroica and Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, evoked a standing ovation by the whole audience.
Also in 2015, the TSMC Hsin-chu Arts Festival made a major effort to uplift the community through the power of the arts. The festival facilitated a connection between National Theater-Concert Hall (NTCH) Opera Workshop Artists and the Taiyen Music School to perform the children’s opera Sleeping Beauty. All box office income was donated to Taiyen Music School for cultivating students’ music talent. To celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, the Hins-chu Arts Festival organized a unique concert at Hsinchu Park by inviting renowned poets, Cheng Chou-yu, Lin Yangmin and Hsu Huei-chih. The closing concert combined sand paintings by Chuang Min-Da and a performance of Taiwan String Orchestra to salute the four seasons. All in all, the Festival arranged around 30 activities and attracted over 20,000 attendees.