Kirjahaku

"Sounding the Centre" is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred centre of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honouring teachers of music and dance, Deborah A. Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge and performance that underlies the classical court arts. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of the ceremony. Only those who have been initiated by a master can manifest the divine in the human realm. The power held by the master musicians, Wong shows, is both ritual and social; they are not just ritual experts, they are also leaders at the government-run National Conservatory. This esoteric knowledge, Wong suggests, has helped Thai classical music endure in the face of changing patronage and the challenges posed by the urban environment that supports it. A compact disc accompanies the book.

"Sounding the Centre" is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred centre of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honouring teachers of music and dance, Deborah A. Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge and performance that underlies the classical court arts. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of the ceremony. Only those who have been initiated by a master can manifest the divine in the human realm. The power held by the master musicians, Wong shows, is both ritual and social; they are not just ritual experts, they are also leaders at the government-run National Conservatory. This esoteric knowledge, Wong suggests, has helped Thai classical music endure in the face of changing patronage and the challenges posed by the urban environment that supports it. A compact disc accompanies the book.

Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music documents the variety of musics-from traditional Asian through jazz, classical, and pop-that have been created by Asian Americans. This book is not about "Asian American music" but rather about Asian Americans making music. This key distinction allows the author to track a wide range of musical genres. Wong covers an astonishing variety of music, ethnically as well as stylistically: Laotian song, Cambodian music drama, karaoke, Vietnamese pop, Japanese American taiko, Asian American hip hop, and panethnic Asian American improvisational music (encompassing jazz and avant-garde classical styles). In Wong's hands these diverse styles coalesce brilliantly around a coherent and consistent set of questions about what it means for Asian Americans to make music in environments of inter-ethnic contact, about the role of performativity in shaping social identities, and about the ways in which commercially and technologically mediated cultural production and reception transform individual perceptions of time, space, and society. Speak It Louder: AsianAmericans Making Music encompasses ethnomusicology, oral history, Asian American studies, and cultural performance studies. It promises to set a new standard for writing in these fields, and will raise new questions for scholars to tackle for many years to come.

Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music documents the variety of musics-from traditional Asian through jazz, classical, and pop-that have been created by Asian Americans. This book is not about "Asian American music" but rather about Asian Americans making music. This key distinction allows the author to track a wide range of musical genres. Wong covers an astonishing variety of music, ethnically as well as stylistically: Laotian song, Cambodian music drama, karaoke, Vietnamese pop, Japanese American taiko, Asian American hip hop, and panethnic Asian American improvisational music (encompassing jazz and avant-garde classical styles). In Wong's hands these diverse styles coalesce brilliantly around a coherent and consistent set of questions about what it means for Asian Americans to make music in environments of inter-ethnic contact, about the role of performativity in shaping social identities, and about the ways in which commercially and technologically mediated cultural production and reception transform individual perceptions of time, space, and society. Speak It Louder: AsianAmericans Making Music encompasses ethnomusicology, oral history, Asian American studies, and cultural performance studies. It promises to set a new standard for writing in these fields, and will raise new questions for scholars to tackle for many years to come.

2020 Alan Merriam Prize for Best Book Published in Ethnomusicology, Society for Ethnomusicology A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.Louder and Faster is a cultural study of the phenomenon of Asian American taiko, the thundering, athletic drumming tradition that originated in Japan. Immersed in the taiko scene for twenty years, Deborah Wong has witnessed cultural and demographic changes and the exponential growth and expansion of taiko particularly in Southern California. Through her participatory ethnographic work, she reveals a complicated story embedded in memories of Japanese American internment and legacies of imperialism, Asian American identity and politics, a desire to be seen and heard, and the intersection of culture and global capitalism. Exploring the materialities of the drums, costumes, and bodies that make sound, analyzing the relationship of these to capitalist multiculturalism, and investigating the gender politics of taiko, Louder and Faster considers both the promises and pitfalls of music and performance as an antiracist practice. The result is a vivid glimpse of an Asian American presence that is both loud and fragile.

Once a promising legal eagle, heartbroken and unemployed Emily Chung is sent to live with her no-nonsense Uncle Raymond, strange but passionate retired actress Aunt Bridget, talkative oddball cousin Daniel and cunning feng-shui believer grandmother in Penang Island, Malaysia after a devastating incident almost costs her her life. In a bid to help Emily move forward and pick herself back up, Emily's uncle offers her an internship at Serendipity Sanctuary, a non-profit community food centre for the underprivileged with close ties to the family. What starts as butterflies in her stomach under the rambunctious pastry chef mentorship turns into a cool-headed environment when she meets Michael Kim, the solo traveller volunteering as a pay-it-forward. The encounter unfurls her past clandestine romance with former renowned K-Pop-idol-turned-soloist Edward Ahn and the devastating heartbreak that led her to cast away a strictly confidential fairy-tale chapter, and, her desire to love again.