It was perhaps inevitable that Tisa Ho, executive director of the ongoing Hong Kong Arts Festival, would carve out a career in the world of the performing arts.
'I always knew that was what I loved, so at school I was in every theatre production I could get into. I was in every choir, dance programme, whatever was going,' says the soft-spoken Ho.
She studied literature at university but found herself drawn to the performing arts - drama in particular - spending most of her three years hanging around the drama lab. She contemplated becoming a performer, but after some soul-searching concluded it was not for her.
'I know that I don't have what it takes to be a performer - the talent, the dedication, the ability to put yourself out there. And that is something I admire in performers. Every time you step out on stage, you put everything that you've got, everything that you are, on display. It takes a kind of psyche to do that. Some people thrive on it. I don't. But I knew I wanted to be involved.'
Ho found her path to arts management by chance rather than design. She had moved to France when a friend told her that City University in London was running an arts management course. She took the course, and a career followed that took her to jobs with the Hong Kong Arts Centre and Radio Television Hong Kong, and to Singapore, where she worked with the Singapore Arts Festival, managed the Singapore Symphony Orchestra for nine years and set up the Singapore International Piano Festival.
She has also published eight books, including a biography of late Singaporean president and arts advocate Ong Teng Cheong that took her two years to complete.
Now, sitting in her office at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai, surrounded by piles of stage-related paraphernalia, it is clear Ho has found her milieu in organising the city's biggest performing arts festival, now in its 40th year. Ho and her team are buzzing with energy and activity, and there is a feel-good vibe in the office that says these backstage operators have no less passion for ensuring the festival's success than the performers who take to the stage.
