Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869-1946

This book examines the intersection between sound and modernity in dramatic and musical performance in Manila and the Asia-Pacific between 1869 and 1948. During this period, tolerant political regimes resulted in the globalization of capitalist relations and the improvement of transcontinental travel and worldwide communication. This allowed modern modes of theatre and music consumption to instigate the uniformization of cultural products and processes, while simultaneously fragmenting societies into distinct identities, institutions, and nascent nation-states.
Taking the performing bodies of migrant musicians as the locus of sound, this book argues that the global movement of acoustic modernities was replicated and diversified through its multiple subjectivities within empire, nation, and individual agencies. It traces the arrival of European travelling music and theatre companies in Asia which re-casted listening into an act of modern culturalconsumption, and follows the migration of Manila musicians as they engaged in the modernization project of the neighboring Asian cities.

Applies, for the first time, sound culture/sound history in analysing cultural history in Asia

Overture 11 The Sound of Modernity.-Sound(ing)s of Modernity.-Preludes of Noise.-Listening to Modernity.-Transposing to Modernity.-Aesthetic Autonomy.-Cultural Commodification.-An Anthropology of Sound.-2 The Tolling of an Early Global City: Genealogiesof Cultural Modernities.-Orchestrating an Archaic Global City.-The Manila-Acapulco Galleon Sounding Route.-Under the Sound of the Bell.-Polyphonic Society.-Enharmonic Entanglements.-Playing by Ear: Acoustic Epistemologies.-Institutionalising Music and Theatre.-Conclusion.-3 De Todo un Poco: Cultural Consumption in Modern Global Manila, 1848-1898.-De Todo un Poco.-Global Sounds, Local Voices Opera.-Zarzuela.-Listening Through the Gaps of Modernity.-Conclusion.-Entr'acte: Sound Junctures of Global Modernity.-Nation as a Modernist Project.-Modernity and Globalisation.-4 Staging Modernity, Auditioning the Republic: Music.-Theatre and the Soni of the Nation.-The First Republic in Asia.-Performing the Republic.-A Dreamed Alliance? Or the First Tagalog Operaas an Exercise in Diplomatic Claim for Sovereignty.-Bayan Ko: Sarsuwela and Composing the Sonus of the Nation.-Conclusion.-5 Modernities in Conflict: The Military Band BetwixtEmpires and Nations.-Regimenting Colonial Sound.-Between Archaic Empire and the Nascent Nation.-US Brass Imperialism and the Philippine Constabulary Band Performing the Empire at St. Louis.-Taft's Own: The Little Brown Men on Tour.-Conclusion 6 Echoing Modernities: Modern Globalisation and the Manila Musicians.-Global Modernities and Sonic Migration.-Echoing Modernities: The Manila Musicians Across Asia The Shanghai Municipal Band.-The Sta. Cecilia Band in Singapore.-Into the Twentieth Century.-Conclusion.-Coda.-References.-Index