Western Musicology in China: A Personal Perspective

  • Craig Wright Yale University
Keywords: China, pedagogy, conservatory

Abstract

The positive interaction between Chinese and American musicologists is due, in part, to a number of Chinese musicologists who have studied at American universities, including Yale. These musicologists are now teaching at the important Chinese conservatories in Beijing and Shanghai. In describing how Western music and traditional Chinese music have been taught, these colleagues provide a history of teaching ideologies, methodologies, and textbooks that are little known to Western scholars. 

 

Author Biography

Craig Wright, Yale University

Craig Wright received a Bachelor of Music in piano and music history at the Eastman School of Music (1966) and a PhD in musicology at Harvard (1972), and since 1973 has taught at Yale University where he is currently the Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Music. At Yale, Wright’s courses include his perennially popular introductory course “Listening to Music” and his selective humanities courses including “Exploring the Nature of Genius.” Among his six books are Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris (1989), Music in Western Civilization (2005), and Listening to Music (6th edition, 2007). He is presently at work on a volume entitled: Mozart’s Brain: Exploring the Nature of Genius. In 2004 Wright was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Chicago and in 2010 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Published
2012-01-12
Issue
Vol 2 No 2: (Spring 2012)
Section
Roundtable

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).