Performing Authenticity: Japanese Artists and Their Transnational Careers in the World of Classical Music

Scholars have established that race configures imaginary and discursive forms of musical representations by providing a rationale according to which variations in music are inherently and inextricably linked with the racial and ethnic origins of its composers.

They argue that the entwinement of music and race frequently assumes a subtle form that is cloaked in “authenticity” and that the notion of “authenticity” may carry weight in aesthetic judgement of artists, who play music that is socially identified as belonging to a racial or ethnic group other than their own. In my talk I will draw on empirical data collected through multi-sited research among Japanese musicians based in France, Poland, and Japan between 2012 and 2019, to discuss the ways in which the representation of “authenticity” in classical music shapes professional lives of Japanese artists.

By unpacking the senses involved in the “authenticity” discourse in classical music, I will demonstrate how Japanese musicians struggle to resolve a putative conflict which they experience when raising claims to “authenticity” in classical music that is deemed incompatible with their ethno-cultural affiliation with Japan. I will argue that Japanese musicians engage in transnational artistic activities partly to reconcile their Japanese heritage with classical musicianship.

About the speaker

Beata M. Kowalczyk is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sociology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and an associated researcher at the Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Économie et de la Société (Paris 1 Panthéone Sorbonne). She has conducted multi-sited fieldwork with Japanese musicians in Warsaw, Paris, and Tokyo, much of which was based at Warsaw University, the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and the University of Tokyo.

Her research has focused on Japanese society and culture, precariousness, and racial and gender-related inequalities in the creative and classical music industries, transnationalism, and postcolonialism. Recently, she has conducted an ethnographic fieldwork on the aftermath of heavy rainfall and floods in the region of Hitoyoshi-Kuma, in Kumamoto prefecture. She is the author of Transnational Musicians. Precariousness, Ethnicity and Gender in the Creative Industry (Abington, Routledge, 2021).

Registration

This event free, open to the public, and held both in person and online.

Contact

• Organiser: SOAS Japan Research Centre
• Email: centres@soas.ac.uk