Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition

Abstract

We live in multicultural times. Whether we are listening to Kronos Quartet or reviewing activities of Institute for Studies in American Music, it is clear that what used to be cozily referred to as and traditional (or worse) has become part of artmusic mainstream. One small but significant example can demonstrate how far processes of cultural integration have come: I.S.A.M.'s second annual Composer Award went to Ye Sook Lee, graduate student in composition at Brooklyn College and native of Seoul, Korea, whose winning piece, As Thread of Tao, subtly incorporates a Korean scale within Western scoring for chamber ensemble.' Of course, it is possible to view present-day multiculturalism as only most recent of many instances in history when art music has fruitfully interacted with other forms of musical discourse. In America, there have been no typical examples of this phenomenon, though three cases could be cited as symptomatic: use of African American and other folk melodies in music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk; complex interweaving of sacred and secular popular melodies in works of Charles Ives; and attempted synthesis of art music and popular music in many of works of George Gershwin. Gottschalk is particularly interesting in having presaged by several decades Antonin Dvo-ik's 1893 admonition to American composers that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called Negro melodies. This must be real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in United States.2 Subsequently, as is well known, Dvofik qualified his view and suggested that not just African American but also Native American and other folk or ethnic musics might equally serve as basis of an American national music; examples of such usages are found in works of many composers. However, in vast majority of these cases (and despite undoubted good intentions of