Asian Modernities

April 4, 2014 - 9:00am to April 6, 2014 - 4:00pm

Voics of Asian Modernities: Women, Gender and Sexuality in Asian Popular Music in the 20th Century.

A conference organized by the Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh.

Popular music – mass-mediated, commercialized, pleasure-filled, humorous, and representative of large segments of society – developed in Asia during the first half of the twentieth century and has become a world-wide industry by now. One of the most striking characteristics of its early years was the proliferation of new performers, often drawn from existing local theater or entertainment traditions that were changing into new fields such as cinema and advertising. Among these early entertainers, a large number of women came from local performing arts. Their voices, mediated through new technologies of film and the phonograph, changed the soundscape of global popular music and resonate today in all spheres of modern life. (Read more and see program details on the conference website.)

Location and Address

Frick Fine Arts Auditorium