Echoes of History

Helen Rees is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1989 she has carried out research on the traditional and tourist-oriented musics of the Naxi ethnis minority and Han ethnic majority of Yunnan Province, southwest China. She is also co-editor of Understanding Charles Seeger, Pioneer in American Musicology (1999).

Full of intriguing details, with a wonderful accompanying CD illustrating Dongjing music in different contexts as well as a variety of other musics ... This is a rich meaty, absorbing and thought-provoking book, which will undoubtedly stimulate lively debates among the ethnomusicological community at all levels. British Journal of Ethnomusicology This book usefully includes a well-documented CD of her field recordings ... and her account is framed firmly within current ethno-musicological discourses ... Ethnographies of Chinese music are still relatively rare, and fine-grained ones such as Echoes of History are rarer still. Keith Howard, Times Literary Supplement

• 1: Ethnic Minorities and the Chinese State 2: The Naxi of Lijiang County 3: The Music World of Republican Lijiang 4: Dongjing Music and Local Interaction in Repubican Lijiang 5: The Wider World Comes to Lijiang: the Musical Impact 6: Have Music, Will Travel: The Dongjing Music Revival 7: Representations and Ethnicity Conclusion Appendix A: Dongjing Scriptures of Lijiang County Appendix B: Temple Interiors for Dongjing Ceremonies in Dayan Town Appendix C: Chinese Texts Appendix D: Glossary of Chinese Characters