Access audio files at:https://soundcloud.com/k-chu-j-petrus/sets/singing-in-mandarin-recorded The success of Chinese artists internationally across many art forms has focused the world's attention on the developing cultural phenomenon in China, an emerging stage for the vocal arts. As one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, Mandarin is poised to become the next addition to lyric languages. Singing in Mandarin: A Guide to Chinese Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire is a comprehensive guide to unlocking the mysteries of Chinese contemporary vocal literature. In part one, Chu and Petrus focus on diction and language, providing detailed descriptions and exercises for creating the sounds of the language. They take a uniquely systematic approach, fusing together best practices from international music conservatories for diction study, with those for Chinese language learning. Part two outlines the historical context of Chinese vocal literature, chronicling the development of the language and its repertoire over the last one hundred years. Audio files narrated by native speakers demonstrating the sounds are also included. Singing in Mandarin provides guidance for both novices and those with previous experience singing or speaking Mandarin and is the first book of its kind to help bring the fascinating and previously inaccessible treasure of Chinese vocal music to Western audiences.

Ni hao! Sing and Chant Your Way to China! is a book that comes with a 30-minute DVD consisting of nine music activities,including lesson plans and SMART Board® files that can be used to teach the activities in an efficient, pedagogical manner.The lesson plans and SMART Board® files provide a way for music educators to integrate these materials easily into their curriculum.

Scholarly studies of Chinese culture, history and society, both within and outside of China, generally pay little attention to leisure, entertainment and amusement, though it has long been known that this aspect of life gives a deep understanding of the psyche and soul, and the hopes and fears, of a person. Leisure is a less coerced-upon, mandatory human conduct than work; certainly leisurely conduct is more voluntary, expressive and creative. But when seen as human behaviour, leisure and entertainment cannot be separated from history, heritage, ethnicity, the community, family and kin, rituals and customs – thus a collective activity and its constraints on the person. This book examines a variety of genre of Chinese entertainment, from singing clubs, Cantonese opera and film, to Chinese rock and tourism. Though formally voluntary, Chinese entertainment, when entangled with ethnicity, heritage and history, is ironically a site of both enjoyment and struggle, both pleasure and suffering. This book was originally published as a special issue of Visual Anthropology.

Two musical worlds collide when East meets West in the new book Comparison of Learning Classical Singing Between European and Chinese Singers.Zhong Jun Shen puts her training and knowledge of European opera and lieder together with her Chinese background to write this fascinating work that incisively shows the differences between the two forms of classical music. Peter Simon helps her as an interpreter, accompanist and opera enthusiast to put her text into a highly informative book to help emerging Chinese opera singers and their teachers grapple with the differences of singing techniques, languages and cultures.The tremendous cultural and language differences presented obstacles in writing this book, but a love for music conquered all.About the Authors: Zhong Jun Shen and Peter Simon have both been teachers and used their life experiences to write this book. Shen grew up and graduated as a European opera singer in Xian, North China, and in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and taught singing in South China. Born in Hungary, Simon taught English there and in China. They both live in the Netherlands.Author website: https: //learningeuropeanandchinesesinging.wordpress.comPublisher's website: http: //www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/ComparisonOfLearningClassicalSinging.html

Contains 9 pages of description of the Chinese Lute in French and 4 pages of a music score written in Chinese. Also includes two scores by Confucius translated from Chinese musical notation, with description in French.

The emphasis on cultural connectivity in China’s growing presence and involvement in Southeast Asia highlights the importance China places on people-to-people exchanges as part of its global engagement strategy. The remarkable ascension of China over the recent decades has precipitated a proliferation of anti-China sentiments, particularly galvanized within the crucible of a “discourse war” with Western powers, as expressed in the latter’s “China threat” narrative. In response to such challenges, China has made substantial investments in cultural diplomacy, to augment its soft power through orchestrated global outreach initiatives. This article examines Chinese cultural diplomacy in the realm of entertainment, specifically “The Melody of Spring: Transnational Spring Festival Gala” hosted in Nanning, Guangxi, and disseminated globally each Chinese New Year. Against the legacy of China-Indonesia bilateral relations as well as Indonesia’s treatment of its Chinese minority, this study explores China’s cultural diplomacy and soft power in contemporary Indonesia. Through the case study of the “Transnational Spring Festival Gala”, this article posits that China’s cultural dissemination as an instrument of soft power has yielded little influence on the Indonesian public and has limited impact on the formation of a transnational imagined community.

Scope: theology, philosophy, ethics of various religions and ethical systems and relevant portions of anthropology, mythology, folklore, biology, psychology, economics and sociology.