SCHOOL OF THE ARTS   |  UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

HONORARY PROFESSOR DR. TAN SOOI BENG

Honorary Professor

Tan Sooi Beng is Honorary Professor of Ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993), and co-author of Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Routledge, 2017) and Longing for the Past, the 78 RPM Era in Southeast Asia (Dust-to-Digital 2013), which won the joint SEM Bruno Nettl Prize, 2014. She is the editor of Eclectic Cultures for All: The Development of the Peranakan Performing, Visual and Material Arts in Penang (USM Press, 2019). Tan serves in the Advisory Editorial Board of Asian Music (USA) and is an elected Vice-President of the Executive Board of the International Council of Traditional Music (ICTM). Tan is actively engaged in community theatre for young people and is involved in revitalizing the Potehi glove puppet theatre of Penang through documentation and localized performances. She collaborated with the traditional performers and young people of Penang to publish the multimedia book set entitled Potehi Glove Puppet Theatre of Penang, an Evolving Heritage (GTWHI, 2017).

Education

  • PhD (Monash)

  • MA (Wesleyan)

  • BA (Cornell)

     

Areas of Expertise

Southeast Asian Music, Decolonising Music and Dance Studies, The study of 78 RPM Recordings

Research Interest

  • Borderland Research in Maritime Southeast Asia
  • 78 RPM gramophone recordings and music historiography
  • Minority and Gender Studies

Research Topics

  • Boundaries, Borderlands, and Belonging: Translocality and the Navigation of Cultural Movements
  • Intersections, and Conflicts
  • Archiving and Repatriating the Performing Arts of Malaysia
  • History of Music from Below
  • Music of the Peranakan Chinese of Malaysia

USM EXPERTS

SPORTLIGHTS

  • PUBLICATIONS



    Tan Sooi Beng (2023). ‘Kita Anak Malaysia [We are the Children of Malaysia]’: Performing Multicultural Chinese Identities, The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora, Edited by Jonathan Stock and Yu Hui, New York: Oxford University Press.

    Tan Sooi Beng (2022).“Community Engagement as a Site of Struggle UNESCO Conventions, Intangible Cultural Heritage, and State Agendas in Malaysia,” in Huib Schippers and Anthony Seeger, Music, Communities, Sustainability, New York: Oxford University Press.

    Tan Sooi Beng (2022) “Soundscapes of Diversity in the Port Cities of British Malaya: Cultural Convergences and Contestations in the Early Twentieth Century”, Chapter 9, In Rusell Skelchy and Jeremy Taylor, Sonic Histories of Occupation, Experiencing Sound and Empire in a Global Context, UK: Bloomsbury.

    Tan Sooi Beng (2019) Eclectic Cultures for All: The Development of the Peranakan Performing, Visual and Material Arts of the Peranakan of Penang, Editor, Penang: USM Press.

    Patricia Matusky and Tan Sooi Beng (2017)The Music of Malaysia, The Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (co-author Patricia Matusky), 2nd edition, SOAS Musicology Series, London and New York: Routledge.

    Tan Sooi Beng (1993).Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera. Singapore: Oxford University Press, First Edition.

  • COLLABORATION



    ‘Sounding Borders, Borderlands and Belonging: Translocality and the Navigation of Cultural Movements, Intersections, and Conflicts’, Co-Editor of Joint Book Project between USM and Kunst Universität Graz, Sponsored by ASEA-Uninet.

  • MASTER/PHD PROJECT SUPERVISED



    Tan has graduated 8 Ph.D and 14 MA students from Malaysia, Japan and Indonesia under her supervision.

    2 current Ph.D students are:
    Leonard Selva Gurunathan: The Pipe-Organ and its Music in Malaysia, Singapore and Hyderabad;

    Jarun Kanchanpradit: Music-Making of the Karen of the Pwo Karen of Kanchanapuri, Thailand.



School of The Arts
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang Malaysia

t: 604 – 653 3888 ext: 3621 / 3415 | f: 604 – 657 6296
e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Dean)
e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Noor Rismafarra Binti Haris (Assistant Registrar)

 

  • Last Modified: Friday 06 December 2024.