Invitation to 25th CHIME Conference (1-4 Oct. 2023, Heidelberg) and CATS MUSIC COLLECTIONS

Exactly 25 years after the last International CHIME Conference in Heidelberg that focused on “Barbarian Pipes and Strings,” they return to the city by the Neckar and the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) that now houses the CHIME Collection to reconsider musical practices in China from a transcultural perspective.

From Confucian debates about the “musics from Zheng and Wei” to more contemporary disputes on “lascivious musics” and “spiritual pollution”—Sunny Side Kong Yiji 阳光开朗孔乙己 just being one of the more recent examples—from controversies over ownership and copyright in old and new folksong or regional opera; to complaints about exoticism on the one hand and self-orientalism on the other: the question of how dangerous, strange or (in)authentic sounds and musics are and who “owns” them, has been important to music-making in China (or the sinophone worlds)—even while melodies, instruments and sounds from afar have, for the longest of times, been considered some of its most “typical” elements. In this conference, participants will explore, how in different Chinese musical worlds “authenticity” has been claimed, contested and negotiated.

Programme:

As is usual for CHIME conferences, the conference program will be accompanied by a variety of concerts, exhibitions, and film screenings—in the offing for you are a workshop on a new “Turandot” performed with Chinese puppets in the Museum of Ethnology and a sounding exhibit on the Silk Road. You will also be able to see an exhibit of that museum’s treasure grove of musical instruments from China (“Chinese Barbarian Pipes and Strings”), you will be able to witness a rethinking of Gustav Mahler’s use of Chinese poetry in Lied von der Erde, through the eyes of contemporary poets and composers, the sounds of the Zheng redeveloped in conversation with Raga percussion, you will hear traces of memory—from Book of Songs to Ukranian Poetry— reworked into music, and the organizers will be screening (and discussing) Wang Bing Man in Black and Ke Yongquan (et al.) The River in me, and there will be plenty of opportunities for musicking in jam sessions at the CATS.

Please explore the conference program here

and find all abstracts here.

Related Podcast Series edited by Simone Hieronymus:

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/show/5Fg64k1wW114dtc692B0pH?si=8cfc1a777c8d4c28&nd=1

Appel-Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/cats-chinese-music-collections-podcast-series/id1702677153

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