Dynamics of social transformation and musical culture: a study of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan

Abstract

This panel takes a multicultural and interdisciplinary approach to the study of music and music education in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, where national musical styles enter into a dialectic with those of the global mass media. More specifically, the panel's four papers consider fundamental concepts of multicultural approaches to the study of music and music education. The first reflects on changes wrought on Hong Kong popular music by the dialectic between media globalization and resurgent localism. The second paper examines the complicated interplay of globalization, localization and sino-philia that determines reforms of Taiwanese music education in the general context of associated social changes. The third paper explores the culture of amateur rock bands formed by high school pupils in Japan, and the fourth discusses the re-creation of cultural identity in the Japanese school music curriculum, through its emphasis on endogenous traditional music which enters into a difficult relation-ship with the music of the global mass media. The panel hopes to provide insights into cultural trends in these Asia-Pacific societies, and into their associated discourse of social transformation and musical development, both in and out of schools.