Geneva | 19th international CHIME meeting on Chinese music

Registration is open for the 19th international CHIME Meeting, on the new face of Chinese music, to be held 21-25 October 2015 at the Haute école de musique de Genève in cooperation with the Confucius Institute of the University of Geneva. We look forward to a splendid and tightly-packed conference with some 60 papers and panels, featuring prominent musicians as well as music scholars, music-educational specialists and general aficionados of Chinese music. We also expect to greet several prominent composers of new music currently active in China or abroad. Rural and classical Chinese traditions will also be represented in this meeting, from rowdy music for village weddings and funerals to high-brow refined southern balladry and solo music for zithers and lutes. The conference is partly intended as an overall assessment of the current state of affairs in Chinese music, and it will address the entire spectrum of music in (or of) China, from rural traditional to conservatory styles, from avant-garde to pop and rock, from ethnic to import traditions. Participants will be treated to a welcome reception, a conference dinner and an afternoon excursion to the Confucius Institute, beautifully located on the shores of Lake Geneva, with a view of the distant Mont Blanc.

Concerts

We expect to schedule a number of concerts, including: – Nanyin (classical southern balladry) with Cai Yayi and her ensemble from Quanzhou. – The Shanghai Sinfonietta, with conservatory-style traditional as well as avant-garde compositions. – Rural ritual music as well as poppy sounds from the exhilarating shawm band Yi Jia Ren (Henan and Shanbei) – qin and other classical solo music with Tse Chun Yan (Hong Kong), pipa player Yu Lingling (Geneva) and other fine performers …and more!

About this year’s theme

Where has Chinese music gone over the past few decades? Where is it positioned today? Many artists are keen to explore new ways, new media, new platforms. Traditional music, too, is being promoted in new formats: intangible cultural heritage projects, internet archives, eco-cultural protection zones, ecomuseums, honorary life grants, special exhibitions, special concert tours and more. How are innovative spirits in China currently reshaping the country’s music? Does the idea of ‘going back to one’s roots’ have any continued relevance? What are the future perspectives for Chinese music, at home, abroad, in performative and in educational terms? In the upcoming CHIME meeting in Geneva in October 2015, we hope to tackle these questions together with some of the country’s foremost contemporary composers, conservatory musicians, classical and folk musical performers: the meeting is a broad attempt to assess the current state of Chinese music. As always, we offer a platform for critical voices from many different backgrounds, from music scholars and anthropologists to music policy makers, media workers, and committed aficionados. The full programme is currently still under discussion. A preliminary conference schedule will be issued in August.