The Color of Music Heritage

Chinese America in American Ultra-Modern Music

Bibliographic Data

ID12469815
AuthorsNancy Yunwha Rao (corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume12
Issue1
Pages83-119
Publication date2009-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Asian American Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1096-8598 • E-ISSN: 1097-2129
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jaas.0.0030
OpenAlexW1970938971
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

This essay considers American ultra-modern music from the vantage point of Chinese America. It argues that the interiority of this racial terrain was molded by the negotiation, mimicry, and transformation necessarily attended musical activities across racial boundaries. Cowell‘s ultra-modern composition bears witness to Asian confluence in the American musical landscape at the beginning of the century, and raises the question of musical heritage. Rejecting the typical orientalist analysis and its self-other framework, this essay explores the significance of Chinatown music, and how a sonic idea that was engendered from it found expression in the dialogical space of American ultra-modern music

Aesthetics · Art · Call and response · Linguistics · Literature · Mimicry · Musical · Musical composition · Musical expression · Orientalism · Perspective (graphical · Popular music · Visual arts · Witness · History · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy · Theater, Performance, and Music History

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