Fallen Leaves, New Roots

Since the nineteenth century, many Chinese have looked to Australia as a land of opportunity, enterprise and eventually settlement. Early sojourners spent decades in colonial Australia with the intention of returning home according to the classical idiom luoye guigen 落葉歸根 (“falling leaves returning to their roots”). Later arrivals from the 1970s and beyond often came with the intention of establishing a new life and home in Australia. This paper examines the music of three collectivities of individuals who over the course of history, have chosen to stay without much thought of returning to their respective homelands. Their unique music, developed “down under,” has for many years influenced my work as a composer, performer and researcher of Chinese descent in the sonic exploration of my own cultural roots. Even to the present day, I attempt to discern what it means to be “Chinese” in a retrospective homeward journey back to China, my “imagined homeland,” as coined by historian Benedict Anderson (1991). Through the examination of various case studies, I present an analysis of my compositional output in relation to its intrinsic connection with selected genres of music from China currently performed in Australia.