Malaysian Chinese Art Song Competitions: An Invented Tradition Bridging Past and Future

Abstract

The Malaysian Chinese art song has its past as a transnational "variant" of the European art song and a lineage from both the Chinese art song and revolutionary song. The genre combines musical realms from the West and the East, while also engaging with the local cultural practices where it is produced. The emergence of this local art song in the 1950s, pioneered by the first generation of Malaysian Chinese composers, reflected a desire to reform and hybridise cultural identity in diasporic Chinese communities. In comparison, the recent generation of composers has been redefining the genre to reflect the evolving cosmopolitan Malaysian Chinese culture. However, the literary and musical components of the art song are not the only sites that reflect and negotiate a hybridised identity; rather, through the dynamic forces of social, cultural, political, and economic functions of art song competitions, the genre becomes one of the participating signifiers that exuberantly express Malaysian Chineseness. By examining extensive archives of competition and festival booklets dating back to the 1960s, this study seeks to uncover socio-cultural facts about how the art song genre is disseminated and preserved through the singing competitions. Moreover, I argue that these singing competitions contributed to the creation of an "invented tradition" across West and East Malaysia, which collectively shaped the performativity of Malaysian Chineseness.