Reference Resources
Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia by Call Number: ONLINE
Books
Chinatown Opera Theater in North America by Call Number: ML1751 .C5 R36 2017
Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America by Call Number: WT YOUNG (4th Floor) ML3560 .C5 Z54 2010
Drumming Asian America: Taiko, Performance, and Cultural Politics by Call Number: ML1038 .T35 A55 2018
More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music by Call Number: ML3502 .I4 M47 2014
Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music by Call Number: ONLINE & ML3795.Y67 2007
Sounding the Indian Ocean: Musical Circulations in the Afro-Asiatic Seascape by Call Number: ONLINE
Soundtracks of Asian America: Navigating Race through Musical Performance by Call Number: ML3560 .A85 W36 2015
Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music by Call Number: ONLINE & ML3560 .A85 W66 2004 & CD 11838
Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities by Call Number: ONLINE & ML3500 .V36 2017
Composers, Performers & Repertory (Online)
- Asian American Pacific Islander MusiciansA growing collection of interviews with AAPI musicians, performers, and composers in classical and popular music.
- Commissioned Composers of Asian and Pacific islander Heritage (Library of Congress)Blog post from the Library of Congress.
- Music by Asian and Asian-American Composers (Theodore Front Musical Literature)Theodore Front is a commercial site offering thousands of scores, CDs, and books. Their topical lists are a great place to start learning new works.
- Institute for Composer DiversitySearch the ICD's databases for composers and links to their websites and works.
Additional Online Resources
- Music of Asian America Research CenterThe MAARC strives to increase knowledge and awareness of Asian American history and experience through collecting and conducting research on materials related to music-making by Asian Americans.
- St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Celebrates AAPI MonthPerformances of works by Tan Dun, Huang Ruo, Bright sheng, Chen Yi, and other composers.
Audio & Video Resources
medici.tv
- Dragon Songs, Lang Lang in China: A Journey Back to His RootsBenedict Mirow, director (Euroarts, 2006)
- Enchantment from China: The Pianist Lang Lang: From China to Carnegie HallBenedict Mirow, director (ZDF, 2004)
- The Korean Musical Mystery: South Koreans in International CompetitionsPierre Barré, Thierry Loreau, directors (Les Films de la Passerelle, 2012)
- Muhai Tang in the Ocean of MusicMarkus Unterfinger, director (TILT, 2010)
Naxos Video Library
- Tea / Tan Dun ; Broken Silence(EUROARTS, 2005)
Recounts how Chinese composer Tan Dun wrote the opera Tea.
Broken Silence draws the portraits of five Chinese composers widely known as the founders of Chinese contemporary music : Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Wenjing, Mo Wuping and Qu Xiasong.
UK Libraries Databases
- Bibliography of Asian StudiesWestern-language database for research on East, Southeast, and South Asia. Covers a broad range of subjects with special focus on the humanities and social sciences.
- Smithsonian Global SoundSmithsonian Global Sound is a collection of the world's musical and aural traditions. Search by geographic location, cultural group, genre, instruments, etc.
- China: Culture and SocietySpanning three centuries, China: Culture and Society provides access to the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia, from Cornell University Library collection in its entirety. Mostly in English and published between c.1750 and 1929, these pamphlets focus on literature on China and the Chinese in the Western world, and address a wide variety of research interests and topics surrounding Chinese history, religion, culture and everyday life.
Subject Headings & Call Numbers
►SUBJECT HEADINGS & THE ADVANCED SEARCH
Unfortunately at this time, the Library of Congress Subject Headings do not offer an approved heading for Asian American music or musicians.
Try this keyword search in the basic InfoKat search: [use the quotation marks around "asian americans"]
You can also do a subject search for music in a particular country:
- Subject contains "music" AND Subject contains "mongolia"
- For more results, set Search Filters to Any Field contains "music" AND Any Field contains "mongolia"
- Music -- Asia
Scores and AV are best searched by composer, performer, and/or genre, and limiting to the material type to Scores, Audio, or Videos, for example:
- Go to Advanced Search
- Search for Library Catalog
- Search Filters Author/creator contains Chen Yi
- Materials Type Scores
►CALL NUMBERS -- BOOKS
- ML3740-ML3758 Asian music (folk, national, & ethnic)
►CALL NUMBERS -- SCORES
- M1795-M1828 Asian music (folk, national, & ethnic)
Or try searching in an Advanced Author/Creator search set to "Contains" the composer's name and setting the Material Type to Scores.
Works in the Western art music tradition are not generally given separate call numbers that indicate ethnicity, gender, orientation, or place of birth. See the document below of an outline of the Library of Congress Classification System for scores: