"Sounds from the East: Composers in Japanese Musical Modernity" at Pitt, April 20.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. Bonnie Wade of UC Berkeley and her talk "Sounds from the East: Composers in Japanese Musical Modernity" on April 20. An Asian Studies Center newsletter provides a synopsis:

Who "the creator of new music" is in Japanese culture changed from the pre-modern performer-composer of traditional musical contexts when the mid-19th century government of the emerging nation-state decided to absorb and normalize music from Europe and America as a technology in a massive modernization process. In this talk, Dr. Bonnie Wade will elucidate how the separation of the functions of performing and composing in the creation of new music was a response to the emergent conditions of Japanese musical modernity and situate composers as creative individuals who by exercising considerable artistic flexibility in their creative production remain "close to the people" while also participating in the shared
international cultural space of Western music.

Wade is the author of a 2013 book Composing Japanese Musical Modernity. The talk begins at 4:00 pm in 4217 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.