"Sounds Chinese" : musical meetings with "China" in contemporary Australia

Touching on issues of migration, identity, hybridity and appropriation, this paper reveals how the disciplines of ethnomusicology and composition helped remedy my “cultural crisis” of sorts by enabling me to shift my focus from when I am ‘from” to where I was ‘at”, in the words of Ien Ang (2001). The ethnomusicological component of this discussion draws on original fieldwork conducted between 2003-2008 in three Chinese communities in Sydney. I focus on Chinese-Australians who have chosen to create a new home in Australia as opposed to diasporans who might be classed as “cosmopolitans” in their constant movement from country to country. Applying certain cultural theories, I reveal how these ethno-specific centres, which function as loci of transformation in a fast-changing contemporary climate, have come to influence my artistic voice as a first generation Chinese-Australian composer. It is this ongoing passion for rediscovering, redefining and revitalising notions of Chineseness that in many ways led to my curatorship of the four-day event, Encounters: Musical meetings between Australia and China (6-9 May 2010).