Catching Up with the West? Historiographical stances in early accounts of Chinese electronic music

Abstract

The emergence of electroacoustic music in China began much more recently than in Europe, the United States, North America, and Japan. Scholars have located the mid-1980s as the turning point in this development. Although consensus is lacking about the exact events and influences that initiated this field of musical production, a pervasive issue confronting historiographical scholarship has been the belatedness of this production. Linked to the trope of belatedness is an acknowledgement of the extremely rapid development of Chinese electroacoustic music, which both assimilated Western technologies and asserted distinctive national characteristics. Furthermore, one of the pioneers in the field, Zhang Xiaofu, has argued that a distinctive ‘Chinese model’ of electroacoustic music marked by stylistic hybridity and integration quickly emerged after this inception. The resulting ‘syncretism’ of practices has generated extensive reflection among Chinese composers and critics.