Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music

by Mari Yoshihara

In the first book to account for the growing prominence of Asians in the world of Western classical music, Mari Yoshihara grapples with the significance of this trend. This is a book about the about the origins of a social and cultural phenomenon, but it is also about the lives and work of individual musicians devoted to their art.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Mari Yoshihara was born in New York City and grew up in Tokyo. She attended high school in Yokohama and graduated from the University of Tokyo before earning a master's degree and doctorate from Brown University. Yoshihara has taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa since 1997 and served as chief editor of the journal American Quarterly since 2014.

She played the piano since the age of three, but took a break from playing while in graduate school. As an adult, she has entered competitions like the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as an amateur, and won in the 2014 Aloha International Piano Festival's amateur division.

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

An intellectually dull and stylistically bland examination of an utterly fascinating topic. It’s about time someone explored the remarkable affinity Asians and Asian Americans have for Western classical music, and one must give Yoshihara credit for diving right in. But in the end she only concludes what intelligent observers already know: it’s a complicated situation. The lack of intellectual heft–I should say, originality–makes “Musicians from a Different Shore” a scattered, shallow book that interweaves interview transcripts and paraphrases of secondary literature with lightweight ruminations on race, class, gender, and ethnicity; the reader is often lost as to the significance of the episodes Yoshihara chooses to relate. I also sensed a discernable frustration from the author in her conclusion with her inability to bring together the many strands she has introduced. I might be being a bit harsh, but given the author's background, I expected more.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent academic tome. Crosses bridges between"Western musicology, ethno-musicology, American studies and cultural studies, and Asian American studies". The title itself is a riff of of Ronald Takaki's seminal Strangers from a Distant Shore.

[Ronald Gilliam · Rating 4 out of 5]

My official review of the book will appear in the upcoming edition of e-Misphérica. Stay tuned for online access...