Amanda Hsieh | European Symphonies on Radio for the 2,600th Anniversary of the Founding of Japan

Event details

Speaker: Dr Amanda Hsieh (University of Durham)

Date: Thursday 21 March 2024

Time: 5.15 - 6.45pm.  

Venue: Alison House, Atrium (G10)

Abstract

The 2,600th anniversary of the founding of Japan in 1940 was a state-orchestrated celebration of the mythological ascension of the Emperor Jimmu. A range of activities was planned for the occasion, including expositions, the erection of monuments, and heritage tourism in both the colonies as well as the Japanese ‘fatherland’. Music, of course, was also present: the Japanese government commissioned several European composers to write music for the occasion, including Jacques Ibert, Sándor Veress, and most notably Richard Strauss (and Joseph Goebbels played a major role in the commission in this instance). Focusing on specifically the radio programming of the anniversary, my paper explores the Japanese state’s exploitation of its commissioned European symphonic music across its worldwide radio network to consider questions of (trans-)national and (trans-)imperial identities, the connection between music and politics, and desires for power and control.

Biography

Amanda Hsieh’s research interest lies mainly at the intersection of global music history, transnational opera studies, and Asian-German studies. Her current monograph project analyses Japanese-German relations through the movement of people around the business of opera – its creation, consumption, adaptation, translation, and reformulation – across imperial Japan, colonial Taiwan, and both Weimar and Nazi Germany. A winner of the 2020 Jerome Roche Prize and the 2023 Kurt Weill Prize, she is Assistant Professor in Musicology at Durham University. Her writings appear in the Cambridge Opera Journal, Music & Letters, and the Journal of the Royal Musical Association.