Colonial Modernity and East Asian Musics

As a special issue of the 'world of music (new series)' journal, this volume warrants a brief explanation of its background and underlying impetus. In April 2010 I organised a one-day workshop on the theme "Music Networks and Colonial Modernity in Metropolitan East Asia" in the course of a large-scale event at the University of Sydney entitled "Preserving Tradition, Facing the Future in Asian Musical and Visual Cultures." The Sydney workshop took the form of substantial individual papers and a final discussion session among participants and audience, which included several of Australia's researchers of expressive culture and the modern colonial era in East Asian history, as well as specialists in Korean, Chinese and Japanese traditional and modem musics. During discussion it was proposed that a volume of papers be published, and also that an "interest group" bringing together researchers of music and colonialism in modem East Asia be formed in the context of one or other of the representative professional associations for the academic disciplines of Musicology or Ethnomusicology. The latter idea came to realisation late in 2010 after a submission to the Executive Board of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM)'s Musics of East Asia (MEA) Study Group. as the Interest Group for Research on Music and Colonial Modernity in East Asia, under the aegis of the MEA. The former proposal led to the collection of articles in the present issue. Together with the formation of multiple panels for MEA meetings such as the July 2012 conference in Hong Kong, moreover, the production of this publication represents the first major fruit of the Interest Group initiative.