ABSTRACT
Contemporary compositional idioms that have emerged in various countries of East Asia during the latter part of the twentieth century have been infused with earlier East-Asian traditional styles to a degree similar to the music of Western countries. Although folk music, ritual music of the court, religious music performed by Buddhists and Taoists in their temples, cultivated elitist art forms such as Chinese opera, and other traditional musical genres, have been synthesized with modern compositional sonorities and techniques, their essence has not been lost in the music of contemporary East-Asian composers. This fusion is also part of a more complex set of factors that reach beyond the boundaries of the Eastern sphere. Despite the identification of such modern musical constructions with the cultural mileu of Asian society, they often reveal a broader synthesis of both Western and Eastern musical sources. This is exemplified by the arrangement of many folk songs with instrumental accompaniment for concert performance, according to which the rhythmic freedom and other stylistic features of the authentic folk tunes are absorbed by Chinese composers into a stricter Western approach.
