CHIME

Exactly 25 years after the last International CHIME (Chinese Music Research Europe) conference in Heidelberg, Barbarian Pipes and Strings, the Center for Asian Studies and Transcultural Studies (CATS), together with the Konfuzius Institut and KlangForum Heidelberg, is organizing a conference that takes a fresh look at China's musical practices from a transcultural perspective. How dangerous, foreign, or (in)authentic certain musical styles or instruments are, and to whom they “belong,” are certainly relevant questions in a country where melodies, instruments, and sounds from ‘elsewhere’ have always been part of the “typical” repertoire. Controversies over ownership and copyright of old and new folk songs or regional operas, and complaints about exoticism or self-orientalism, always play a role when “authenticity” is claimed, contested, or renegotiated by different parties. Five concerts that reflect on “China's” diverse musical practices—from the guqin to the tabla, from the accordion to the morin khuur—accompany the conference.
Five concerts accompanying the conference reflect on China's diverse musical practices—from the guqin to the tabla, from the accordion to the morin khuur. The program features transformative soundscapes—instruments and melodies that change their form and sound on their musical journeys, including along the Silk Road; rare, ephemeral sound textures as traces of musical memory in transcultural dialogue, and finally a brilliant intervention by WANG Ying on Gustav Mahler's “Das Lied von der Erde” (premiered in 1911), which stands as an exceptional work in Gustav Mahler's series of symphonies, in the tradition of musical exoticism. WANG contrasts Mahler's setting of ancient Chinese poetry in Hans Bethge's adaptation with a series of contemporary Chinese poets and their memories of the sounds of Chinese protest rock, thus closing our circle of a transculturally conceived “Chinese” journey around the world in sound.

Creative Dialogues – Hearing Distant Sounds Anew at the 25th CHIME Conference in Heidelberg Barbarian Pipes and Strings Reconsidered – Negotiating Authenticity in the Musics of China – Transcultural Perspectives

Additional framework program:

October 2, 2023, Heidelberg Museum of Ethnology

5:00 p.m. Exhibition opening with concert KLANGKÖRPER – Moving Instruments

with DAI Xiaolian (guqin), CHANG Chia-ling (liuqin), CHEN Teng (erhu), NACHIN (morin khuur)

October 3, 2023, Old Auditorium, Heidelberg University

5:30–7:00 p.m. Roundtable: Creative Transformations – Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth and its “Covers”

with WANG Ying, Stefan HAKENBERG, DAI Xiaolian, and members of KlangForum Heidelberg, MODERATOR: Barbara MITTLER

October 4, 2023, Heidelberg Museum of Ethnology

10:00 a.m. Exhibition concert and puppet workshop: Sounds of the Silk Road – on the Way to Turandot

with CHEN Yi, WANG Ming, WANG Ying, WEI Minjin (accordion), and NACHIN (morin khuur) and Chinese puppets