Musical hybridity : Guoyue and Chinese orchestra in Taiwan

Guoyue. literally "national music", is a hybrid musical genre that originated from mainland China mixing different types of Chinese traditional music. Transmitted to Taiwan in the 1950s, guoyue today manifests considerable creativity and diversity by drawing on expressions of Chinese cultural heritage and Taiwaneseness, while simultaneously ranging in style from traditional to modem through the influence of systemic modernisation, Westernisation and globalisation. Significant changes to politics, society and economics in Taiwan that began in the second half of the 1980s and continue to affect the Taiwanese population pose ongoing challenges to guoyue, such that its musical practices are undergoing negotiation and reconstruction within the context of Taiwan. Moreover, frequent cross-cultural inlluence and exchange have Icd those in the RIIOYlIe system to gradually incorporate aspects of diverse musical cultures and to produce a new musical form, crossover tkuajiei. through diversified and complex systems of cross-cultural and cross-genre interaction. This thesis consists of an introduction and four major chapters. Chapter two assesses the development of guoyue and the Chinese orchestra iguoyue tuani in mainland China. looking at such issues as hybridisation and political and social transformation. Chapter three explores changes in the development of guoyue in contemporary Taiwan with regard to issues of political transformation. This chapter also discusses how musicians in Taiwan utilise guoyue as an expression in shaping their sense or national identity and vice versa. An ethnographic analysis of the current music making of Chinese orchestras in Taiwan is presented in chapter four. linally, I consider the effects of Taiwan's current govemrnental policy through the concept of transculturation, and offer a transnational perspective through the di fferent situations of guoyue in Singapore and Malaysia. Overall, the research shows that the developments of guoyue and Chinese orchestra have continually changed according to political. social and cultural impacts. This research reveals how an ethnomusicological framework can be used to understand the development of guoyue and how those within guoyue cope with the connected and cross-border musical hybridities that characterise the present situation in postcolonial Taiwan.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo