Music Theory Forum: Nancy Rao (Rutgers University), "Inside Chinese Theater: Archive of the Invisibl

Name: Music Theory Forum: Nancy Rao (Rutgers University), "Inside Chinese Theater: Archive of the Invisibl
Start: 2025-02-12T15:30:00-08:00
Location: Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall

Schedule

Wed, 12 Feb, 2025 at 03:30 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall | Goleta, CA

Music Theory Forum: Nancy Rao (Rutgers University), "Inside Chinese Theater: Archive of the Invisible and Sino-Soundscape in North America"
The defining tunes of Sinophone community in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth were those of the Cantonese opera performed in Chinese theaters. This history has been invisible due to the scarcity of materials about Sinophone community in archives. The sonic imageries were also imprisoned by the mounting derision in English newspapers and travelogues. Drawing from the diary of a Chinese laborer to piece together the history of vibrant Chinese theaters, this talk offers readings against the grain to consider how archives structure our understanding of the past, and frame how we enter into the present and future.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. Her work bridges musicology, music theory, and Sinophone and Inter-Asia studies. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she is the author of Chinatown Opera Theater in North America. For The Cambridge Companion to Serialism, she contributed a chapter on East Asia. Her analysis of materiality in the sonic imagery of East-Asian composition recently appeared in Music Theory Spectrum. Rao currently serves as editor of the journal, American Music. Her new book, Inside Chinese theater: Community and Artistry in 19 century California and Beyond, will be published in March 2025.