HÀ NỘI – Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) granted 85 scholarships on Thursday in Hà Nội, giving a total value of VNĐ510 million to young music talents at five musical universities and colleges nationwide for the 2016-17 school year.

The programme, which has been implemented since 2009, aims to encourage the spirit of young music talents and to contribute to human resource and music culture development in Việt Nam.

Each scholarship is worth about VNĐ6 million.

The university and colleges include the Vietnam National Academy of Music, the Huế Musical Institute, the HCM City Conservatory of Music, the Tây Bắc Musical College and the Việt Bắc Musical College.

In addition, TMV will donate traditional instruments worth VNĐ90 million to these five universities and colleges.

At the awards ceremony in Hà Nội, Toru Kinoshita – President of TMV said, “We highly appreciate your strong efforts in studying over the recent years to reach outstanding achievements. Especially, it was great honour that some previous students had good performances in big concerts of TMV as well as received high prizes at international music competitions. I do expect that our support will be partially helpful for your endeavour on the way to becoming good artists.”

Đặng Thị Bích Liên, deputy minister of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “I highly appreciate and sincerely thank Toyota Motor Vietnam for its active support and assistance for the development of human resources for Vietnamese music. I believe that the Toyota Scholarship Program will support Vietnamese young music talents to continue to develop and reach further achievements”.

Over the last eight years, more than 730 scholarships have been granted to excellent students. In addition, this programme has created chances for students to practise and perform with professional orchestras at major music events.

For example, Phạm Thị Duyên Huyền played in Toyota Classics 2011, Đỗ Phương Nhi played in the Toyota Concert in 2011 and 2013. Especially, many students have received prestigious awards at international music contests such as pianist Đỗ Hoàng Linh Chi, Phan Thiên Bạch Anh, Nguyễn Thế Vinh and Hồ Hoàng Khánh Vân as well as scholarships to study abroad in America, Japan, Europe and many other countries. — VNS