Two musicians playing instruments, with a screening being projected onto a wall behind them so they are partly lit up by the projected image.

1 Dec

The Ninth Tone

Presented within the oldest continuous Chinese settlement outside of Asia, The Ninth Tone speculates on the legacy of Chinese music outside of China since the 1800s. First conceived in 2022 by composer Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung, this iterative project uses intonation, materiality, memory, and echo to reimagine a Chinese Australian sonic history.

This project is a manifestation of a practice that problematises simplistic understandings of ‘east meets west’ cultural collaboration that has been present within the arts and broader culture over the past 30 years - a position that ignores significant historic lineages. Chinese culture and music has been present in Australia for almost 200 years, and cross cultural collaboration is almost as old.

Following Chinese Australian musical lineages that lead from traditional practice up to experimental practices today, The Ninth Tone offers an alternative answer to the question of what Chinese Australian music is and can be.