Abstract
This chapter uses the case of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO), the first professional Chinese orchestra in Taiwan, to discuss the history and development of the orchestra from its founding in 1979 to the present. It suggests that the TCO, which initially served to showcase Taiwan’s cultural ties with China, gradually evolved to highlight the characteristics of “Taiwan guoyue.” By “Taiwan guoyue,” I refer to the use of Chinese orchestral music as a deliberate nationalist tool to emphasize a Taiwanese identity as separate from a mainland Chinese one. I argue that Taiwanese composers and musicians created a distinction between “mainland guoyue” and “Taiwan guoyue” to present Taiwanese musical identity and to display their musical characteristics differently from China and other Chinese orchestras in Sinophone regions. By commissioning and performing pieces that incorporate musical elements from the music of southern Hokkien, Hakka, and Indigenous peoples, the TCO attempted to make Chinese orchestral music less mainland Chinese and more Taiwanese for its local and regional audience.
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