A “Chop-Suey” Musician in a Melting Pot: Kuo-Huang Han and the Northern Illinois University World Music Program, 1975–1985

Abstract

Multicultural education in the United States took a significant step forward when the Tanglewood Symposium of 1967, in American Society, recommended the expansion of the repertoire taught in schools to include the music of all periods, styles, forms, and cultures and music of our time in its rich variety, specifically popular teen-age and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the of other cultures. (1) In response, some institutions started to incorporate non-European music, such as jazz and other ethnic/world classes and ensembles, into their standard curriculum in the 1970s. Some researchers examined prospective and in-service teachers' toward such inclusion and found positive attitudes among general and instrumental teachers. (2) Other studies suggested significant benefits of incorporating non-Western materials into the classroom: for example, the use of hands-on activities to learn such music, the expansion of the repertoire, and an increased social/cultural awareness of the world. (3) However, most of the studies are surveys concerning the inclusion of multicultural courses, and there are not many biographical sketches about individual endeavors and the challenges encountered when introducing multicultural to college students. The purpose of this study is to document the integration of various Asian traditions into the curriculum of the department (now the School of Music) of Northern Illinois University and specifically to trace the development of its Asian ensemble in the 1970s. This integration was a pioneer effort because the Big Ten and the majority of other public universities with departments of approximately the same size as NIU's did not introduce such programs until much later in the 1980s and '90s. (4) As L. C. Chin reported, only 27 percent of 538 National Association of Schools of Music-accredited institutions offered one multicultural course, and 13 percent offered two such courses in the 1994-95 academic year, while by 1975 NIU already offered two world ensembles (the steel band ensemble and the Asian ensemble) and two ethnomusicology courses (Introduction to Ethnomusicology and Survey of World Music). (5) Among the individuals credited with the inclusion of multicultural content in the NIU curriculum was Kuo-Huang Han, a Chinese-born musicologist who founded the preliminary stage of the world program at NIU. (6) To document the early establishment of the world program, I conducted interviews with Han, several administrators, and alumni. The data also consists of artifacts, including course catalogs, concert program notes, and photos of instruments and students' performances during this period. The Birth of the NIU World Music Program Kuo-Huang Han was trained at Northwestern University (1964-74) as a musicologist in early European and began teaching Western history at NIU in 1971. He studied Asian at the Center for World Music in San Francisco in the summers of 1974 and 1975, and in San Diego in 1980. These experiences and his Chinese heritage catalyzed the early stage of the NIU world program. Although he did not officially earn any degree in ethnomusicology, these two sources and his enthusiasm for learning and teaching non-Western classical created the foundation for what he accomplished later in his career at NIU. Han's Chinese Background Han was born in Xiamen, China, in 1936 and grew up in Taiwan, where he learned to play the violin as a child. Although he was an English major in college, his passion for violin continued, and he was a violinist in the Provincial Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and the host of a classical program on the Fu-Hsin radio station in Taipei from 1959 to 1964. During this time, he was able to practice Western professionally, and because of his dual specialty in and English, he was invited to serve as translator for the prominent American composer Lou Harrison when he visited Taiwan in 1962. …