Event: Musicology lecture with Ya-Hui Cheng, Red Songs and Nationalism in C-Pop
Date: March 13, 2025 - 4:00pm
Location: Contemporary Arts Center (first floor conference room)
"Strengthening the Socialist Legacy: Red Songs and Nationalism in C-Pop"
Research on Chinese red songs often highlights their representation of the proletarian ideologies (Barme 1999, Baranovitch 2003). However, little attention is drawn to how red songs strengthen the socialist legacy through music’s connection to Chinese traditions. This oversight primarily stemmed from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which ignited debates about China’s sociopolitical landscape and raised expectations that the country would transition toward capitalism. Discussions surrounding red songs diminished in global media coverage. It was not until the advent of digital entertainment that international audiences started to recognize the lasting popularity of red songs within the C-pop industry. Today's Chinese red songs incorporate folk, rock, rap, and Peking opera elements, creating a cohesive global Chinese cultural identity.
Unlike earlier red music, primarily as political propaganda, recent red songs highlight recollective intimacy, fostering connections through shared sociocultural memories and showcasing China’s soft power on digital platforms. How does this latest iteration of red music, rooted in socialist principles, resonate with Chinese individuals worldwide? This talk examines popular red songs, focusing on their evolving sounds and insights into cultural identities. By analyzing the sonic authenticity and cultural sentiments, I demonstrate how nationalism intertwines with themes of China's historical grandeur, categorizing this as socialism with Chinese characteristics, ultimately emphasizing the sustainability of the Chinese dynasty. The findings indicate that despite advancements in musical innovation, the sonic and visual productions remain deeply rooted in historical recollection. Red songs have evolved from earlier socialist expressions to celebrate Chinese culture, underscoring its enduring significance.
Ya-Hui Cheng, a native of Taiwan, has taught Music Theory at the University of South Florida since 2015. Her research focuses on transcultural sounds in global Chinese popular music and folksongs, exoticism in Italian Operas, and Buddhist music in the Mahayana tradition. She has regularly presented her research at peer-reviewed regional, national, and international conferences in Germany, England, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, and the United States.
Cheng's The Evolution of Chinese Popular Music, Modernization and Globalization, 1927 to the Present (Routledge: Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series, 2023)—received a Certificate of Merit Award by the Association For Recorded Sound Collections. She also authored Puccini’s Women: Structuring the Role of Feminine in Puccini’s Operas (Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009). Her articles have appeared in Musicology Now, China Policy Institute Analysis Online Journal, The Opera Journal, and the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. Currently, she is working on a research project with a tentative title, Sino-Chinese Folk Music: Identities, Memories, and Intimacy, which examines cross-strait folk music cultures through the studies of sonic elements in our time. Ya-Hui was the recipient of the National Opera Association Dissertation Competition Biennial prize for her studies on Giacomo Puccini and has received several prominent awards, including the Florida Education Fund’s McKnight Fellowship, the University of South Florida’s New Research Grant, the Summer Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Public Scholar Fellowship from the Kettering Foundation.