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This paper presents part of a fieldwork on traditional Khmer wedding music conducted in Phnom Penh. Traditional Cambodian weddings consist of a succession of rituals which symbolize different aspects of marriage. Khmer wedding music (phleng kar) is the lifeblood of the wedding ceremony, since it not only accompanies the wedding rituals, but also describes and prescribes the ritual scenes. The meaning of phleng kar song lyrics is the result of Khmer popular wisdom and reflects socio-cultural values. This paper aims to show the vital role of traditional song lyrics, within the context of Cambodian wedding ceremonies and with regard to Khmer society and culture in general.

Born in 1932, Elaine Barkin completed her doctoral degree in composition and theory at Brandeis University (1971), where she studied with Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, Arthur Berger, and Seymour Shifrin. In 1956-57, she further established herself in the contemporary music world by working at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik on a Fulbright Fellowship. Her main distinction as a composition and theory professor comes from her long career at the University of California in Los Angeles (1974-97), where she had the opportunity to collaborate with well- established intercultural composers such as Roy Travis and the school’s world- famous ethnomusicology faculty. In the 1980s, Barkin’s progressive compositional style was revitalized through her new interest in Indonesian gamelan music. In addition to participating in UCLA’s world-renowned Javanese and Balinese gamelan ensembles, she used a University of California Pacific Rim Research Grant as the opportunity to make five trips to Indonesia for the purpose of studying new music for gamelan. The ultimate products of her new interest include Indonesian-influenced compositions for Western instruments, music combining Indonesian with Western instruments, and works written exclusively for mixed gamelan instruments. Some of Barkin’s most impressive works in this realm are Lagu Kapal Kuning (originally for four- tone gamelan anklung and revised for five-tone gamelan anklung), Touching All Bases/Di Mana Mana for Balinese gamelan, double bass, and electronic percussion, and Legong Dreams for solo oboe, which freely utilizes figurations taken from Balinese legong dance melodies. Particular emphasis is placed on Gamélange for harp and mixed Balinese and Javanese gamelan (1993), an impressive composition that effectively combines the slendro/pelog scales and various Balinese/Javanese instruments (including kantilan, calung, ceng-ceng, bonang, saron) with fascinating writing for the solo harp.

Although the economy of North Korea is weak, when it comes to promoting its political agenda, resources can easily be found. The performance contexts and the musical function of the Ǔnhasu Kwanhyŏnaktan1 of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, hereafter North Korea) were different from those of other orchestras in the world, since it was formed not simply to provide artistic diversion, but to unite the public, and to unify the ideology of the people. Like other North Korean artists who give public performances, the musicians of the Ǔnhasu Orchestra were directed to promote governmental policies and to foster patriotism among the public via musical events and performances. Studying the Ǔnhasu Orchestra is important, because, although the orchestra was short-lived, it shows the changing perspective of North Korean performing arts in the 21st century. My paper deals with the motivations which underlay the formation of the Ǔnhasu Orchestra, and discusses the various social functions it fulfilled, until its disbandment in late 2013. This study investigates the performance contexts and the performance style of the orchestra, as well as socio-political aspects in relation to North Korea’s musical diplomacy.2

Chinese American communities have been part of the United States since the 19th century. Currently, their high rate of immigration has made Chinese Americans one of the country’s fastest growing communities. However, in Miami, only 0.3% of the population are Chinese Americans. In this local setting, in the words of Su Zheng, music serves as an important “signifier that produces complex cultural meanings.”1 Because traditional music forms one of the most significant aspects of music in China, it is critical to explore the extent to which Chinese American musical culture has developed and changed. This paper discusses the function of Chinese music influences, Chinese and Chinese Americans in their new diasporic setting, and how music reflects individual or group identities. This paper explores one type of Chinese American communities in Miami, centering on the Chinese Baptist Church. In this example, the present study attempts to show how music, among Chinese Americans in Miami, involves the preservation and enactment of cultural traditions in daily life, religion, and festivals, through which diasporic communities maintain their sense of identity and place. The music of Chinese Americans in Miami has established its own hybrid tradition that is unique to its own local and national roots, helping to shape the contemporary local diaspora. This paper fills a gap in the study of the Chinese American experience, both in Miami in particular and the United States in general. Through different research methods, I found that the Chinese American musical community is an exceptionally complex diasporic world that, in many respects, markedly contrasts with established Chinese settlements in the United States. This complexity is a product of both the unique cultural environment of Miami and the individual experiences of Chinese American immigrants and their music-making.

This paper addresses issues of cultural integration in Japan. Focusing on two different time periods, the 1950s and the present moment, the paper contrasts specific jazz practices and attitudes to determine how and to what degree jazz has become integrated into Japanese culture. Based on the close observation of live performances, the paper concludes that the process of adopting jazz practices into Japan can be seen to be much more fully integrated in the current jazz scene in Tokyo and Yokohama than in the 1950s during the height of its popularity.

Compared with wind and brass, bowed string instruments tend to be featured less frequently in jazz, an observation equally applicable to the Chinese two-stringed fiddle, erhu. However, jazz compositions which utilize erhu may convey exceptional sound quality along with various Chinese characteristics. As a representative figure in Chinese jazz fusion, Kong Hongwei created the erhu and piano duet, Sanshui, in collaboration with the prominent erhu performer Song Fei. Lanhuahua, a famous Chinese folk song arranged by Kong’s student, Hu Xiaoyang, has been chosen as a comparison with Sanshui. Besides a literature review on jazz theory and instrumentation, the author has conducted interviews with Kong and Hu about their music, primary intentions, and musical expressions. In an almost reciprocal manner, Kong and Hu implement jazz characteristics by exploring the various aspects of erhu playing, such as improvisation, modern performance gesture, jazz rhythm, the treatment of blue notes, and in particular, its capability to imitate the intonation of the human voice, which is key to the promotion and popularization of jazz in China.