What are your main research interests?
Among my various research interests, I would say my main interests would be comparative musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies and translation studies.
What are your current projects?
My current research project deals with the very early musical encountering between China and Europe in 16th century; where Jesuit missionaries, led by Italian Priest Matteo Ricci, had contributed to some early examples of musical knowledge transfer.
What led you to pursue this research?
I love music, being a violinist myself, I was educated under the western system of musicology, which later when I experience the western impression of Chinese music, if finds me intriguing of how the orient is being represented and undertaken from a western perspective; that leads me into a further interest of investigating how this cross-cultural music encountering begins.
How is your research unique?
In the case of musical encountering between China and Europe, the importance of missionary was seen influential mainly in 18th century, yet one shall not neglect that Jesuit missionaries started certain musical activities early in 16th century already, despite the limited scale, they carried great significance to later musical work between Chinese and European musicians.
How do you want to use your fellowship for your research?
First of all, it is definitely an honour to be one of the Research Fellows in CeMEAS, the fellowship enables myself to meet many other colleagues in relevant field of studies, and could further share ideas between different scholars. With more shared perspectives, it brings more opportunities to access to different sources, and may eventually better researches.
How would you describe your work’s importance to an interested lay audience?
Compared with Matteo Ricci and his fellows’ scientific and technical contributions, their musical achievement is often overlooked. Yet, by analyzing these very early models of musical encountering, one may find a great panel in understanding how two completely different musical systems meet and further evolve.