COORDINATING COMMITTEE
In our News Bulletin, we invited readers to list up for a Coordinating Committee for CHIME (CCC). Below, we introduce the first candidates who contacted us to this purpose.
The CCC (to be formally elected in Lisbon, May 2023) will play a key role in maintaining CHIME’s annual conferences, its website and news bulletins. The CCC will function for three years, after which new candidates (as well as sitting CCC members, if they wish) can list up for (re-)election.
The present members of the official Executive Board of CHIME cannot be in charge of affairs forever, so we really need younger people to step in and help us! Below, the first candidates for the Committee introduce themselves.
Samuel Horlor
Durham University, UK
Greetings to fellow CHIME members!
I’m originally from London, and my relationship with Chinese music began in 2004. That summer, I visited Beijing for the first time and had my ears opened by the finest concerts and theater shows the tourist circuit could offer. But by 2007, I had set myself up in Wuhan, and the real exploration began – now focused more on live houses, festivals, and parties. Over the years since, I’ve had spells living in Dalian, Shanghai, Foshan, Kunming, and Guangzhou – moving from tourist to teacher, and then from fieldworker to postdoc.
Throughout this time, most interesting to me have been the musical experiences where I don’t have to buy a ticket or get an invitation in order to meet people singing and playing. Fortunately, I found these almost every day – going on in city streets, parks, squares, and all kinds of derelict spots. My key interest became street musicians, karaoke singers, and square dancers – the kinds of music all around us as part of ordinary city life. Most intriguing to me is how this music is embedded in many of the things we do each day, shaping our activity and our feelings about ourselves and our environment – often without us fully taking note.
I went back to Wuhan in 2014 to do research for my PhD on the street music there, and since then have been largely based in the city of Durham in England’s Northeast, teaching ethnomusicology and popular music – with a recent spell away for a fellowship at Yunnan University mixed in.
I’m proud to add to the diversity of musical interests explored and celebrated in CHIME, which continues to serve as a great source of inspiration and academic stimulation for me. I am keen that some of the experience I have picked up in the last decade of academic life – organizing conferences and events, editing for journals and books, taking care of various kinds of admin – can contribute to the organization’s ongoing position as an important platform and meeting place. I look forward to seeing everyone at the forthcoming meetings!
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Odila Schröder
Heidelberg University, Germany
(odila.schroeder@zo.uni-heidelberg.de)
I’m Odila Schröder. As a Sinologist, my research interests include the musical infrastructure and repertoire developed by the “collaborationist” regimes in Japanese-occupied China, the transcultural history of music theory and concert repertoire in modern China, the mapping of concert repertoire and concert programme collections, digital sound maps, urban everyday sounds and discussions on their recognition as intangible cultural heritage.
After learning Chinese at Tsinghua University, I studied East Asian studies, political science and the history of science at Heidelberg and Cambridge University and obtained an MA in Chinese and Transcultural Studies from Heidelberg University in 2017. Studying with Barbara Mittler allowed me to explore topics at the intersection of Chinese Studies, musicology, visual and sound studies – often with a focus on specific political and societal conflicts, such as early republican transcultural encounters and contemporary urban reconstruction.
Between 2017-2020, I was part of the ERC-funded project “Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth Century Asia”, led by Jeremy Taylor. During this time, I was also able to participate in several CHIME conferences, including one in Beijing. Encountering the people whose work I found so inspiring when reading the CHIME journal and joining in the conversation with other scholars proved particularly important in my journey as a PhD student. Through CHIME members, I was able to contact musicians and time witnesses who provided pivotal information. I hope to continue contributing to CHIME in the future to nourish and expand the wonderful platform it provides. My PhD thesis, entitled “ Treasonous Repertoires: Performing Collaboration and Musical Life in Japanese-occupied Beijing, 1937–1945” explores the musical culture of the “occupation state” in Japanese-occupied Beijing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It includes a first collection and edition of over 80 propaganda songs composed in support of collaboration and offers a detailed analysis of the evolving musical repertoires and performance practices developed and appropriated by the regime. In particular, I highlight continuities between pre-war mass singing activities and the performance practices initiated by the occupation state – and thus challenge long-standing narrative alignments between the aesthetic and moral judgement of musical culture in wartime China.
In 2020, I returned to Heidelberg University as a postdoctoral researcher and member of the China-Schul-Akademie. As part of this project, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, I have developed teaching material on a broad range of topics, including modern Chinese history, politics and music. I also enjoy singing and am a member of several choirs and vocal ensembles.
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Li Huan 李环
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen
My name is Li Huan (李环). It’s my great pleasure to meet you all here at CHIME. I am from mainland China. My academic background consists of training in three jurisdictions: mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States. I have received a doctoral degree from Wesleyan University (in ethnomusicology) and an M.Phil. degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (in ethnomusicology). In addition, I have received an MA degree in musicology, specializing in erhu (the two-stringed-bowed instrument) performance and teaching, from Hunan Normal University. Currently, I am a junior fellow working at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen.
My research interests include music and gender, music changes, and music and social media. My M.Phil. thesis is about the impact of cultural policies on the performance style, repertoires, management, and different developing directions of two types of performance troupes: the private troupe and the public troupe of huguxi (lit., the flower-and-drum opera) in the Changsha area, Hunan province, in the middle part of China. I published my founding “‘Dirty Theatre’ and Reform: Huaguxi before and after 1949 in Hunan Province, China,” in Asian Musicology in 2010. My dissertation focuses on the Peking opera qinshi (the leading accompanist in the Peking opera ensemble) and the main accompaniment instrument jinghu (lit., the Peking opera fiddle; the two-string-bowed instrument) as my research subjects. In my dissertation, I discuss three related issues: female qinshi and their musical performances, the institutionalization of qinshi’s traditional training, and the musical lives of contemporary qinshi. To comprehensively analyze those phenomena, I used theories from women's studies, gender and music, and musical changes. One of the main chapters of my dissertation has been adapted into an article, “An Unorthodox Voice: The Rise of Female Qinshi: Their Rise of Female Qinshi, Their Challenges, and Their Pursuits,” published in the Yearbook for Traditional Music in 2021. My interest in these topics came from my experiences listening to the jinghu solo “Ye Shenchen” (Deep Night) and my curiosity about qinshi’s accompaniment competence.
In China, training in the musical conservatory system and training in Chinese theatre schools represent two different training fields though there are intersections between the two. The training system of the former has been more Westernized than the latter. I appreciate opportunities to learn jinghu accompaniments and communicate with performers in the Chinese theatre, which facilitate my comprehensive understanding of Peking opera accompaniments and the transformations of Peking opera performance traditions. I’m currently working on an article about qinshi’s training and the use of musical notation, exploring the relationship between performance and reading musical notations.
What attracts me to join CHIME is its open approach to Chinese musical culture. As written down on its official website, CHIME is a worldwide platform that “promotes musical understanding across cultures, regardless of any political, ethnic and social differences or dividing lines.” My educational background and life experiences have taught me to be open-minded to different points of view. There is an old Chinese saying: haina baichuan, yourong naida (The sea accepts all rivers because it is a virtue to be tolerant).
I look forward to meeting anyone interested in Chinese music and China studies, communicating with them, and contributing to academic studies in Chinese music and China studies across cultures.
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Li Shuqin 李淑琴
Musicology Dept, Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing
Dear all, I’m Li Shuqin (李淑琴). Unfortunately, due to visa issues, I cannot come to Lisbon to attend the 24th international CHIME conference. I am a Professor of Musicology and Music History at the Musicology Department of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. I have followed the activities of CHIME from its beginnings in the 1990s, and in the past I have attended several of CHIME’s conferences held in Europe. I have acted as a liaison officer of the CHIME journal since it was first published in 1990. I look much forward to joining the Coordinating Committee of CHIME since I appreciate CHIME’s work, and I hope I can contribute meaningfully to make this platform flourish and expand
In Beijing, I am mainly engaged in teaching, research and criticism in the field of Chinese modern music history. For those of you who wish to get the full details: I’m a member of the Chinese Musicians Association, director of the Chinese Music History Society, as well as a 2009-2010 Sino-US Fulbright Research Scholar. My publications include "Research on the Creation of Contemporary Chinese Instrumental Music" (co-authored, 2019), "Music Memory of the Republic" (co-editor, and contributor, 2019) and many more. I have also written many academic papers, e.g. on composer Ma Sicong. In recent years, I have focused in my publications on dialogues with Chinese musicians and composers.
I’m proud to say that many of my students have won the "Chinese Music History of National College Students" appraisal award, jointly sponsored by the Central Conservatory of Music, the Ministry of Culture and the "Chinese Music History Society".
As a project host expert, I completed the national major project "Research on the Future Development of Chinese Professional Music Creation and Communication" (2022), the Ministry of Culture's cultural and artistic science research project "International Communication and Promotion of Chinese Music Culture" (2019), and I am involved in a variety of other large-scale research projects, initiated by the Central Conservatory of Music, focusing on Chinese Modern and Contemporary Music History and related topics.
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Du Yongfei 杜咏霏
Conservatory of Music, Drama, Media Hannover (HMTMH)
Center for World Music (CWM), University of Hildesheim
Dear all, here is Yongfei from China. I am a lecturer and habilitation candidate in ethnomusicology at the Conservatory of Music, Drama, Media Hannover (HMTMH) and the Center for World Music (CWM) at the University of Hildesheim, Germany. I have also taught ethnomusicology at German universities in Rostock and Halle-Wittenberg, focusing primarily on such topics as European-influenced expressions of Chinese music and the position of East Asians in German music cultures. But in my own research, I have also dealt extensively with Chinese traditional music and dance, partly in the framework of intangible cultural heritage. (My Ph.D. was about Yangge after the Cultural Revolution). Besides teaching at the university, I have been directing and conducting the first Chinese Children's Choir in Germany since 2016, which I founded with my family in Berlin.
Since joining the 2015 annual CHIME conference in Geneva, I have been impressed by its publications and activities, especially the mentality of the people there. For me, CHIME has a unique function for scholars to build a network and interact with colleagues, musicians, and musicologists in international Chinese musical scholarship. In my experience, CHIME offers opportunities to all people who would like to perform, talk, listen, compose and investigate Chinese music. Therefore, as a research foundation, it brings together not only scholars of (ethno)musicology, sinology, or anthropology but has also become a meeting place for journalists, musicians, composers, and educators in the realms of Chinese or East Asian music. Although CHIME is located in Europe, I have not felt that Eurocentrism plays any role there. Viewpoints, opinions, and positions based on different philosophical or musical backgrounds can be freely exchanged during the annual meetings, and this open atmosphere creates an ideal framework and freedom for topics to be addressed from any meaningful angle.
In the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has been changing how people live worldwide. Lifestyle, health, and happiness have become even more significant to you and me in view of the global social changes. I had to miss the inspiration, visual stimulation, small talk, and laughing at CHIME meetings, all the things one would share with other CHIME family members; and, especially as a Chinese immigrant in Germany, this exchange was important for me. All of these are reasons for me to wish to see CHIME prosper again, and it has encouraged me to list up for joining the Coordinating Committee for CHIME (CCC). I would love to contribute with my skills and experience in matters of organizing, cooperating, managing, directing, and coordinating, whatever is needed to keep CHIME afloat. With members of the Board, the other candidates in CCC, and your trust, I’m sure we will find appropriate and innovative ways to get the most out of CHIME's role. Overall, I look forward to seeing you all soon, preferably in person again!
With my warm and best wishes from Berlin (Germany),
Yongfei Du.
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Francesco Serratore
Zhejiang Music Conservatory, Hangzhou, China
Hi everyone, I’m Francesco Serratore, I am Italian and I’ve been living in China since 2018, when I started my post doc in Ethnomusicology at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Currently I am an associate professor at the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, in Hangzhou, where I teach two courses: one in World Music (for bachelor’s students) and one in Intercultural Musicology (for master’s students).
I started dealing with Chinese music while writing my master’s thesis about music in the Chinese community of Milan. Later, during my PhD studies at Sapienza University of Rome I have conducted field research in China, mainly in rural areas of the city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
At the moment I’m carrying out two main researches: one is about the storytellers of Wenzhou Guci 鼓词, and one is about live jazz music in Shanghai and multiculturalism. I am also a musician, I play clarinet and zampogna (Italian bagpipe) and I really like to participate in the world music and jazz music jam sessions here in Shanghai.
Before concluding this short self-intro I would like to mention my first experience with CHIME: it was the 19th international CHIME Meeting, held in 2015 at the Haute école de musique de Genève. At that time I had just returned from my first fieldwork in China, and I was very enthusiastic but at the same time disoriented by the immense musical world I had encountered in China. In those days in Geneva I met many professors and scholars who were extremely willing to share important information and points of view with me. When I returned home after the conference ended, I felt that I had just spent my first day of school. Since that day CHIME has remained an important point of reference for me in the study of China and Chinese music.
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Dai Baisheng 代百⽣
Faculty of Arts & Design, Macao Polytechnic University
Dear colleagues, I am Baisheng Dai (代百⽣) from Macao. I would like to volunteer for the CCC. Please allow me to briefly introduce myself. I obtained my MA in piano teaching 1997 in China and my PhD in music pedagogy 2005 at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In recent years, I have been committed to the research and international promotion of Chinese music, especially Chinese piano music and local music in Macao. I have actively participated twice in the CHIME meeting, in 2017 at UCLA and in 2016 in Hamburg. I agree with the mission of CHIME very much, and I also deeply feel the friendly cooperation of this team.
My current position: Professor and coordinator of music program at Faculty of Arts & Design, Macao Polytechnic University. My research areas: Music pedagogy with focus on multicultural education & music teacher education; Piano music and piano pedagogy; Cross-cultural study; Cultural and Creative Industry; Sociology of Music Education.
I wrote five monographs and numerous further publications. Languages: Chinese is my mother-tongue. I also possess skills in German and English.
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Lenka Chaloupková
Department of Sinology, Charles University, Prague
(Lenka.Chaloupkova@ff.cuni.cz)
Dear all, this is Lenka Chaloupková (b.1991). It used to be said that every Czech is a musician. In our family, it has been true for generations. Music plays an integral part in my life: I have been playing violin and recorders since the age of five. I also studied violin at the conservatory in České Budějovice. I added the erhu during my stay at the Shanghai Conservatory.
I tried to broaden my horizons by studying Sinology at Charles University, with a focus on Chinese music. In 2021 I participated in the organization of the 23rd CHIME Meeting in Prague. Now I am an assistant professor at the Sinology Department of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University.
Research Interests.
My current research stems from my long-term desire to understand the interaction between Western music and Chinese music in the 20th century. It mainly focuses on the public understanding of Western music in Republican China, and how it influenced both composers and emerging "musicologists". I am especially interested in the institutions and publications involved in the promotion and teaching of music, in the rediscovery of traditional genres and in the interactions between musicians and intellectuals. I study these aspects using musical analysis and primary sources (including recordings, sheet music, biographies, diaries and journal articles). In the past, I have also worked on the composer Xian Xinghai, on the genre of School songs, and on the reception of Claude Debussy in China.
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Feng Jun 冯俊
Ethnomusicology, (SOAS), London, UK
My name is FENG, Jun (冯俊), and I am a Doctoral Researcher in Ethnomusicology, Teaching Assistant, and Guest Lecturer at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. My current research focuses on issues of modernisation and urbanisation, media and economics, Intangible Cultural Heritage and social policies, as well as folk instrumental bands, Chinese Traditional Music Theory and ritual music in China. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Musicology (2015) and my Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology (2018) both at Central China Normal University in Wuhan. As a research assistant in a documentation project on Hubei Province’s Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016, I was responsible for video shooting, interviewing, data collation, and transcription. As a member of the editorial team for a major publication on Chinese Folk Music in 2016, I assisted in collecting relevant literature, scores, pictures, videos, and recordings. In 2016, I also underwent training in Music Archaeology with the Chinese Museum Association. Some of my research outcomes have been presented at conferences, such as CHIME (2017; 2021), ICTM-Ireland (2020), British Forum of Ethnomusicology (BFE) (2021), International Musicological Society-East Asia (IMSEA) (2021), Association for Chinese Music Research (ACMR) and Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) (2021).
When I first attended in 2017, CHIME gave me the first impression of a family of Chinese music researchers. I am interested in joining the Coordinating Committee of CHIME and am excited about the opportunity to collaborate with other colleagues to contribute to the academic community of Chinese music studies. I am deeply committed to advancing diverse perspectives and promoting academic collaborations and exchanges in this field. I believe that by serving on this committee, I can make a meaningful contribution to these goals by sharing my expertise and engaging in discussions with other members of the committee.
