A new voice: Australian guitar music with Vietnamese cultural influences

Abstract

For more than fifty years, Australian composers have continued to look for new musical ideas and inspiration in the music of other cultures demonstrating significant interest in the music of China, Bali, Java, Japan and the Pacific. This thesis aims to contribute to the Australasian musical interchanges with a repertoire of guitar music with Vietnamese cultural influences. Based on ethnomusicological research, these creative works will weave together Vietnamese social-cultural contexts and musical materials with Western art music styles, exploring and enhancing the musical-technical possibilities of the guitar as the expressive medium. International collaborations have extended this repertoire to ensemble performances of guitar and Vietnamese traditional instruments; guitar and Vietnamese Gong ensemble; and guitar and percussion from Europe, Africa, India, Tibet, China, Middle East, and the Caribbean. In the process of ethnomusicological research into Vietnamese and French primary sources, this thesis has also made original contributions shedding new light on the changes and development of Southern Vietnamese traditional music in the late nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century. A new voice in Australian music, this creative project is an expression of tradition, innovation and global interaction.