7. Conference
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2013 Dec 3-4 Chinese Composers’ Festival Symposia: Retrospect and Prospect: Chinese Composers in the Age of Globalization. Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong. “Fusing Chinese and Western Traditions: hybridity in Bright Sheng’s Seven Tunes Heard in China and Chen Yi’s Ning.” Abstract: Ethnomusicologist Sarah Weiss proposes a model of hybridity which characterizes musical styles that emerge from distinct stylistic parents as products of two compositional approaches: "intentional hybridity," in which listeners are able to identify elements from each parent style being juxtaposed; and "natural hybridity" where the resulting style is similar to but not exactly like its parents and develops in its own right. The author perceives this model as a continuing spectrum with the two hybridities representing the opposite ends. Contemporary Chinese composers Chen Yi and Bright Sheng were trained in both Chinese and Western musical traditions, and their styles are often described in terms of fusion. This paper focuses on one work by each composer, and discusses the materials, techniques and strategies these composers use to exhibit their personal approach, and where these two works fall in the spectrum of hybridity. Folk tunes are quoted in both works, but Bright Sheng in his solo cello work Seven Tunes Heard In China presents authentic quotations before developing them in his own language, while Chen Yi conspicuously incorporated fragments of the folk tune Molihua throughout her Ning, a onemovement trio for violin, cello and pipa.