International Journal of Music and Performing Arts

An Analysis of the Revival of Ancient Chinese Court Music in Higher-Education System in Taiwan
Ma, Ming-Hui

Abstract
This article discusses the importance of the establishment of ancient Chinese court music at Nanhua University in Taiwan, which results in a trend of the revival of this music genre in China in this fifteens years. The music genre was revived in the ensemble in the club in 1996, and transformed in the curriculum in the Department of Ethnomusicology at Nanhua University in 2001. The motivations of the revival of this music genre and how this lost tradition can be reconstructed in the higher-education system could be discovered through an analysis of the structure, transmission process, aesthetic preference, and challenges in the curriculum. There are three parts in the following discussion: the first part describes the establishment of ancient Chinese court music in this department with a short literature review in this music genre, because this department is the first and only one that devoted itself to advocating the recrudescence of ancient Chinese court music in the higher-education system in Taiwan in comparison with the trend of other departments of Chinese music in China and Taiwan; the second part focuses on the structure and pedagogy in the curriculum, including practical performance and theoretical instructions in this music genre, and the challenges in integrating into the curriculum; and the third part analyses the relationship between Chinese culture and ancient court music and the challenges in contemporary society. Interviewing and participant-observation are two main methods to acquire first-hand information about how the revival of this ancient music genre works in this department and the motivations of two founders.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijmpa.v7n2p1