Musical Encounters and Repertory in Japan 1860–1880: Transnational flows in multicultural spaces

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• Thomas Cressy (George Kingsley Roth Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge)
• Wednesday 04 March 2026, 17:00-18:00
• Lecture Room 2, Faculty of Music, West Road.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lindsay Friday.

In 1854, Japan ended two-hundred years of isolationist policies and opened to global trade. As a result, the Shōgun built segregated ports and rented them to the influx of diplomats and traders arriving from China, Europe, North America, and Australia. Such migrants brought musical traditions, repertory, and material culture into new multicultural spaces. I ask: what did the Japanese and foreign residents hear and how did they interpret such foreign sounds? What repertory and musical traditions were involved in these cultural encounters? What does the concert repertory and material culture that arrived in the ports tell us about music circulating globally in the 1860–1870s? Based on my reading of hitherto unexplored concert sources, from the multinational communities of Japan, this paper offers some clues.

I focus on musical instances of cultural encounter and community-level interactions within the ports of Nagasaki and Yokohama. I show the movement of concert repertory and musicking practices, and how contemporary sources discussed them. Repertory, I argue, reveals a range of national and social-class dynamics informing the reception process of the ‘Western music’ that had circulated into Japan. Historically situated Japanese, European, and North American auralities will be explored, as well as the ways music was used to both foster community and create ‘Others’ within multicultural spaces.

This talk is part of the Faculty of Music Colloquia 2025/6 series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Faculty of Music Colloquia 2025/6
• Lecture Room 2, Faculty of Music, West Road

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