Foreword: Aesthetics of Interculturality in East Asian Contemporary Music

Intercultural composition materialized at a time during which Euro-American social and artistic values transformed into a force of globalization. Such a force profoundly impacted on political, educational and artistic institutions in East Asia and helped shape perceptions of the relationship between the domestic and the foreign which have continued into the twenty-first century. China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan share something: a general acceptance of "Western" music as the basis of contemporary musical development and change. Perhaps the most defining element of this affinity is the "interculturality" seemingly inexorable to the very concept of contemporary composition. Despite the wholesale acceptance of European art music as "modern" music in the mid-twentieth century, artists in these East Asian countries simultaneously acknowledge the importance of traditional music to the identity of a modern nation. Acknowledged, as well, is the somewhat marginal status these music traditions have held within rapidly developing twentieth-and twenty-first-century societies. Caught between the rhetoric of national representation and long-established cultural and racial power discrepancies, many East Asian composers embody a liminality in international composition: perennially marked by foreignness on the one hand, and labeled a vehicle for progressive national culture on the other. Insider/outsider dichotomies have remained foundational to the reception and interpretation of compositions by non-European, non-U.S.-American composers in the new millennium. An increasing number of composers, performers and educators have turned to the music expressivities of East Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan for artistic partnerships. Thus, issues of identity, authenticity, ownership and culture have become more complicated. The articles in this issue explore constructs of interculturality in the East Asian context. By examining the particularities of nation, genre, musical roots and composer identity, each paper both explores and questions the validity of the interculturality construct. The contributors to this issue aim to re-appropriate the notion of interculturality by exploring the nuances of East Asian compositional perspectives.