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