HRC Seminar - Instruments as Mediators: “Social Agencies” of Australia’s Chinese Musical Instrument Collections - The Case of Bendigo’s Golden Dragon Museum
Most scholars would agree that musical instruments serve not only as passive tools for artistic performance but also as active agents of transformation within their cultures and societies, therefore, making them logical and essential objects of ethnomusicological investigation. Large collections of instruments in museums across the globe, however, have attracted little scholarly attention, ignored as potential areas of ethnomusicological inquiry. Similar to collections of other types of objects, musical instruments embody the ideas of their creators, owners, and collectors, but what is unique about musical objects is that they represent both the audio and visual (as well as musical and cultural) values. Musical instruments have an important role as mediators that shape our understanding of their musical culture.
         Using archival documentations, surviving instruments, and ethnographic interviews, this paper investigates the establishment of Chinese musical instruments housed in the Golden Dragon Museum (Bendigo). This paper explores the perceptions and receptions of the Chinese instruments, the relationships between Chinese communities in Australia and elsewhere, as well as their connections with current cultural performances and interpretations. By means of these focuses, a fascinating picture of the Chinese soundscape in Australia emerges, one that is fluid and negotiable. In historical studies of Australia’s Chinese communities, musical aspects of their culture is far from comprehensive and is often neglected altogether. With a better understanding of the collection, the paper demonstrates that, since the late nineteen century, the Chinese and other ethnic communities of Australia have begun a process of audio-visual dialogue and negotiation with the dominant culture. Musical instruments are mediators that permit communication between the various communities, moving us back and forth between different historical epochs and providing us with diverse conceptualizations of Australian society.

Tsan Huang Tsai is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research covers a wild range of disciplines, including ethnomusicology, organology, material anthropology, and Chines studies.  He is the author of an edited book Captured Memories of a Fading Musical Past: The Chinese Instrument Collection at the Music Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2010), and 17 research articles. During his stay at ANU, Tsan Huang will be working on a new project “Relational Instruments: How Bendigo's Past Soundscape is Shaping its Present and Future” that is developed during his 2009 Endeavour Fellowship from Australian government. For more information, please visit http://web.me.com/thtsai/CUHKMUSIC/Welcome.html.

Date & time

  • Tue 10 May 2011, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Location

Theatrette, Level 2, Sir Roland Wilson Building