Description
Musicians of Asian descent enjoy unprecedented prominence in concert halls, conservatories, and classical music performance competitions. In the first book on the subject, Mari Yoshihara looks into the reasons for this phenomenon, starting with her own experience of learning to play piano in Japan at the age of three. Yoshihara shows how a confluence of culture, politics and commerce after the war made classical music a staple in middle-class households, established Yamaha as the world's largest producer of pianos and gave the Suzuki method of music training an international clientele. Soon, talented musicians from Japan, China and South Korea were flocking to the United States to study and establish careers, and Asian American families were enrolling toddlers in music classes.
Against this historical backdrop, Yoshihara interviews Asian and Asian American musicians, such as Cho-Liang Lin, Margaret Leng Tan, Kent Nagano, who have taken various routes into classical music careers. They offer their views about the connections of race and culture and discuss whether the music is really as universal as many claim it to be. Their personal histories and Yoshihara's observations present a snapshot of today's dynamic and revived classical music scene.
Author: Mari Yoshihara
Publisher: Temple University Press
Published: 09/01/2008
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.62h x 5.58w x 0.69d
ISBN13: 9781592133338
ISBN10: 1592133339
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Genres & Styles | Classical
- Music | Ethnomusicology
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Asian American Studies & Pacific
About the Author
Mari Yoshihara is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.She is the author of Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism.