Looking at musical globalization and vocal music, this collection of essays studies the complex relationship between the human voice and cultural identity in 20th- and 21st-century music in both East Asian and Western music. The authors approach musical meaning in specific case studies against the background of general trends of cultural globalization and the construction/deconstruction of identity produced by human (and artificial) voices. The essays proceed from different angles, notably sociocultural and historical contexts, philosophical and literary aesthetics, vocal technique, analysis of vocal microstructures, text/phonetics-music-relationships, historical vocal sources or models for contemporary art and pop music, and areas of conflict between vocalization, "ethnicity," and cultural identity. They pinpoint crucial topical features that have shaped identity-discourses in art and popular musical situations since the1950s, with a special focus on the past two decades. The volume thus offers a unique compilation of texts on the human voice in a period of heightened cultural globalization by utilizing systematic methodological research and firsthand accounts on compositional practice by current Asian and Western authors.

Looking at musical globalization and vocal music, this collection of essays studies the complex relationship between the human voice and cultural identity in 20th- and 21st-century music in both East Asian and Western music. The authors approach musical meaning in specific case studies against the background of general trends of cultural globalization and the construction/deconstruction of identity produced by human (and artificial) voices. The essays proceed from different angles, notably sociocultural and historical contexts, philosophical and literary aesthetics, vocal technique, analysis of vocal microstructures, text/phonetics-music-relationships, historical vocal sources or models for contemporary art and pop music, and areas of conflict between vocalization, "ethnicity," and cultural identity. They pinpoint crucial topical features that have shaped identity-discourses in art and popular musical situations since the1950s, with a special focus on the past two decades. The volume thus offers a unique compilation of texts on the human voice in a period of heightened cultural globalization by utilizing systematic methodological research and firsthand accounts on compositional practice by current Asian and Western authors.

When did China make the decisive turn from tradition to modernity? For decades, the received wisdom would have pointed to the May Fourth movement, with its titanic battles between the champions of iconoclasm and the traditionalists, and its shift to more populist forms of politics. A growing body of recent research has, however, called into question how decisive the turn was, when it happened, and what relation the resulting modernity bore to the agendas of people who might have considered themselves representatives of such an iconoclastic movement. Having thus explicitly or implicitly 'decentered' the May Fourth, such research (augmented by contributions in the present volume) leaves us with the task of accounting for the shape Chinese modernity took, as the product of dialogues and debates between, and the interplay of, a variety of actors and trends, both within and (certainly no less importantly) without the May Fourth camp.

Using ethnographic data collected in China and South Korea between 2004 and 2011, author Sunhee Koo provides a comprehensive view of the music of Koreans in China (Chaoxianzu), from its time as manifestation of a displaced culture to its return home after more than a century of amalgamation and change in China. As the first English-language book on the music and identity of China's Korean minority community, Sound of the Border investigates diasporic mutations of Korean culture, influenced by power dynamics in the host country and the constant renewal of relationships with the homeland. Between the 1860s and the 1940s, about two million Koreans migrated to China in search of economic opportunity and political stability. Settling primarily in the northeastern part of China bordering the Russian Far East, these Koreans had flexibility in crossing geopolitical and cultural boundaries throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1949, the majority of Koreans in China accepted their new citizenship designation as one of the PRC's fifty-five official national minorities. The subsequent partition of the Korean peninsula in 1953 further politicized their ethnic identity, and for the next forty years they were only authorized to interact with North Korea. It was only in the early 1990s that Chaoxianzu were able to renew their relationship with South Korea, although they now faced new challenges due to an ethno-national prejudice as it focused on the nation's industrial advancement as the most prominent measure of its social superiority. Sunhee Koo examines the unique construction of diasporic Korean music in China and uses it as a window to understanding the complexities and diversification of Korean identity, shaped by the ideological and political bifurcation and post-Cold War political resurgence that have affected Northeast Asia. The performances of Korean Chinese musicians-positioned between their adopted state and the two Koreas-embody a complex cultural intersection crisscrossing ideological, political, and social boundaries in historical and present-day Northeast Asia. Migrants enact their agency in creating a unique sound for Korean Chinese identity through navigating cultural resources accessed in their host and the two distinctive motherlands.