Utz, Christian, “Cultural accommodation and exchange in the refugee experience: a German-Jewish musician in Shanghai” (2004)

Title : “Cultural accommodation and exchange in the refugee experience: a German-Jewish musician in Shanghai”

Author(s) : Utz, Christian

Year : 2004

Type : Journal article

Subject : History

Keywords : culture;foreigners

Journal : Ethnomusicology forum

Volume : 13

Number : 1

Start page : 119

End page : 152

Language:Name : English

Support : Print

Abstract : This article uses biography as a means of penetrating the musical culture of Shanghai at a particular historical moment. The multi-faceted interaction of the German-Jewish refugee composer Wolfgang Fraenkel with his Chinese host environment between 1939 and 1947 affords a rare opportunity to observe the processes by which musical influence takes place - an influence flowing both from Fraenkel to his Chinese students and from Chinese culture into Fraenkel's own music and thinking, however tentatively. Although in his public and semi-public musical life, Fraenkel was pragmatic rather than idealistic, he was one of the few who were willing to confront ethnic separation and prejudice.