The Musical Autobiographing of the Chinese Composer WANG Xilin
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study focuses on the Chinese composer WANG Xilin’s (b. 1936) acts of musical autobiographing by drawing on two concepts: (1) “all art is autobiographical”; (2) musical autobiography is a self-performance in flux. I unravel how and why the composer has devoted himself to on-going self-initiated life-writings not only in music but also through other forms of autobiographical acts, memoirs, writings, interviews, online talks, letters, and even WhatsApp messages. I argue that Wang’s incessant musical-autobiographing is to give voice to sufferers like him, thus safeguarding his country’s collective memory of the Cultural Revolution so the same tragedy would not happen again.
Author: Hon-Lun Helan Yang
Institution: Hong Kong Baptist University
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7167032733
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: