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Home / Publications / The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora

The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora

Featured UBC Contributors: Dr. Alan Thrasher (prof. emeritus) and Kar Lun Alan Lau (BMus ’03)

Publication Details: Oxford University Press

Link: doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661960.001.0001

Abstract: 

This volume provides an innovative vision for Chinese music studies in the twenty-first century. Each chapter advances research insights into a genre or context in Chinese music and develops a theoretical model applicable beyond the case studies. The volume includes contributions from researchers based in anglophone Europe and North America and also in sinophone settings including China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Hong Kong SAR, and in Chinese diasporas around the world. In Part I, chapters explore the polyvocal legacies of Chinese music, including archaeological findings, the writing of music history, the interpretation of historical practices, and the close study of new cultural expressions. Specific topics include archaeology of Chinese music, ancient Chinese music theory, “barbarian” dances in Chinese antiquity, kunqu opera qupai, Shijing songs, disputes over Hong Kong’s music history, and turning points in Chinese musical modernity. Part II focuses on evolving practices across instrumental and vocal traditions; each chapter ties a musical transformation to its social dimensions. Following an account of heterophony in traditional instrumental ensembles and revised repertory, chapters consider changes in the field of ethnic-minority folk song, guqin zither performance, musical theater in Taiwan, the Chinese orchestra, and the pipa lute in the Chinese diaspora. In Part III, authors address intersectional issues in Chinese music studies. Several chapters discuss popular-music cultures, exploring race, sexuality, humanism, political aspiration, and the professional/amateur spectrum. Other chapters address liveness and mediation in contemporary music for Western instruments and consider the roles of music for ethnic-minority identities within China and among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. A final chapter systematizes the contemporary discipline of Chinese music studies.

 

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