Imagining Taiwan? Nanguan in Taiwanese Contemporary Music Compositions
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Yang, I-Hua
Abstract
Contemporary music in Taiwan has followed the development of western music for the last hundred years, because of the influence of western classical music education. Taiwanese composers who received such training, on one hand, continued the various experiments of New Music since 1950s; on the other hand, were aware of the importance and particularity of indigenous musical culture, such as nanguan. Hence, a process of “re-discovered” indigenous musical culture has been experienced among Taiwanese composers, who lately absorbed those musics into their musical idioms. However, nanguan, with its dual cultural identities, is formed as one of the representatives of Taiwan traditional music by the government and scholars. In particular, along with the rise of Taiwanese consciousness after 1990s, more and more composers applied nanguan into their works. Therefore, the cultural discourse of nanguan is gradually connected with Taiwanese consciousness, and became a representative figure of “Taiwan imagination” in Taiwanese contemporary musical compositions. This paper will first discuss the cultural position of nanguan in the context of Taiwan history, and how nanguan as Taiwanese tradition is employed by composers. Going through the use of nanguan elements in the compositions of Taiwanese composers from 1990 to 2013, this paper then reveals the cultural constructions of nanguan in Taiwanese contemporary music. By taking “Dialect II” (1998) by Lai Deh-Ho and “Grieving the Evanescing” (2006) by Yang Tsung-Hsien as 2 examples, this paper argues that the relationship between the aesthetic subject of composers and object of cultural materials involves various kind of interpretations, even beyond the cultural discourse of nanguan.
Subjects
Nanguan
Taiwanese contemporary music
Lai Deh-Ho
Yang Tsung-Hsien
Type
thesis
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