A performance guide for contemporary Chinese art songs from Taiwan

In China, the fusion of foreign cultures began thousands of years ago. The Western European and Chinese culture exchange began during the 16th century. However, only in the last seventy years or so have the Western-trained Chinese musicians been trying to fuse Western compositional techniques and Chinese musical elements in order to create a new assimilation. Use of standard Western notation, the instrumental music is very accessible to musicians of any ethnic background. But the language barrier prevents non-Chinese speaking singers from learning and appreciating art songs in Chinese. The purpose of this study is to provide singers with a new repertoire and performance guide of contemporary Chinese art songs from Taiwan. It will enable them to perform these songs using the original language, Mandarin-Chinese, while developing a grasp for the true meanings of the songs. The second chapter of this study is Music in the Chinese Society with emphasis on the development of vocal music. A brief description of different styles of poetic writing is included in Chapter Three. Chapter Four contains a pronunciation guide for Mandarin-Chinese based on the IPA system and the Chinese Pinyin system with a brief orthographic explanation. The goal is to make the learning process more efficient and enjoyable; therefore, the writer of the study developed a set of symbols that are visually more recognizable for singers who are familiar with the IPA system. In Chapter Five, the writer chose twenty contemporary Chinese art songs for further studies. The art songs, composed between 1958 and 1992 by eleven Western-trained Chinese composers, are all accompanied by piano. The writer of the study takes a singer and a voice teacher's point of view to analyze the selected songs. Besides literal and idiomatic translations, background information of the composers and poets, and pronunciation guides, the study also describes salient features of the songs, including helpful tips for the performers and pedagogical suggestions for teachers. With permission from the composers, the scores were reproduced. An audio tape of the writer reciting all twenty poems is included as a teaching and learning aid.