Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music

Why do so many Asians devote their lives to playing Western classical music?

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: A Rising Scale in Relative Minor Chapter 1. Early Lessons in Globalization Voices Chapter 2. The Roots and Routes of Asian Music Chapter 3. Playing Gender Chapter 4. Class Notes Voices Chapter 5. A Voice of One's Own Conclusion: Musicians First Acknowledgements Notes Selected Biography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Mari Yoshihara is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.She is the author of Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism.

Review :
"It provides an excellent overview of the role that Asians have come to play in the world of western classical music. It is beautifully written, extremely lucid, and well researched." Timothy D. Taylor "A comprehensive cultural, historical and ethnographic study of Asians and Asian-Americans who pursue Western classical music in the United States...a probing authoritative survey." Publishers Weekly "Ms. Yoshihara excels at sketching out the biographies of these musicians, who also speak for themselves in large chunks of interviews reproduced verbatim...Their accounts of navigating professional and cultural pitfalls in Asia, Europe, and North America make Musicians a worthwhile purchase for anyone who's struggled with similar issues of identity, authenticity, and achievement." The Far East Review "An excellent and thoroughly realized new book...what is most remarkable about Yoshihara's study is the precise layering she finds...superbly researched, Yoshihara adds vital resonance to this subject." Philadelphia City Paper "This enlightening and informative book studies music in a social and subjective context. The art of music is here regarded as expression and communication. This multicultural study is highly recommended for students and general readers." Multicultural Review "Invaluable... Yoshihara's book illuminates the often-ignored and hidden dimensions of classical music's political economy through extensive interviews with musicians and will be of interest to scholars of oral history eager to understand how unwritten narratives unfold at angles oblique to the written canon of classical music scholarship... Oral historians will find many parts of this book noteworthy." - The Oral History Review "Yoshihara pays particular attention to the role of ethnicity, gender, and social class in the experiences of Asian and Asian American classical musicians in the US...Summing Up: Recommended." Choice "Musicians from a Different Shore [is] an interesting and insightful read to both the performance scholar and the avid classical music fan." E-misferica, Jan 2009 "Yoshihara's book is an excellent study...Musicians from a Different Shore is definitive... [F]or anyone who is serious about the ongoing demographic transformation of classical music, or anyone who is curious about the Asian faces in the symphony hall, this book is a must have...The book has no rival, and it is unlikely to have any."- Fanfare, May/June 2009 "[A] study that deftly combines intellectually rigorous analyses, vivid portrayals of dozens of musicians, both famous and less well-known, and a memoir of a musician-scholar who has personally struggled with the questions she poses to her informants... Yoshihara contextualizes their answers in larger discourses about race and culture without judgment or condescension." Popular Music and Society, June 2009