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Listening to the World Locally – The Homecoming Tour of Taiwanese Musicians
Listening to the World Locally – The Homecoming Tour of Taiwanese Musicians

Publication date: 20 Aug 2024
Author: Lee Yi-ling, Wang Li-Chiao | Staff member at the Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

Ninety years ago, in August 1934, a group of young Taiwanese musicians embarked on the first Western music concert tour in Taiwan’s history. The Homecoming Concert Tour began with great fanfare during the scorching summer of the South Island, kicking off at the Taipei Medical School Auditorium. With a packed itinerary, the tour traveled southward, stopping at public assembly halls in Hsinchu, Taichung, Changhua, Chiayi, and Tainan, before culminating in a final performance at the Kaohsiung Youth Hall. Despite the demanding schedule, the musicians delivered exquisite piano melodies and harmonies to audiences across Taiwan, sparking widespread acclaim.

This article focuses on Taiwan’s first “Homecoming Concert Tour,” which was rapidly organized in just over a month. The program primarily featured Western musical compositions. During the scorching summer of the South Island, this grand musical feast unfolded with enthusiasm, traveling from north to south with seven performances. It offered audiences across Taiwan an auditory delight, broadened their horizons, and brought Western music closer to the local population. This tour marked the beginning of Taiwan’s musical diversity and led to Taiwan’s music being recognized on the Olympic stage, where Taiwanese music shone brightly on the global scene.

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Introduction to International Collaboration of Taiwan Cultural and Historical Resources Acquisition Project (ICTAP, 2009-2012)

In order to develop knowledge economy and utilize pioneering information technology, our government strongly promoted “Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (2008-2012)” in 2008, expecting national archive digitization will effectively inherit culture, increase and apply knowledge. The National Sci-Tech Programs covered many areas. It included 8 sub-projects in order to execute and supervise its development in every dimension.

International Collaboration and Promotion of Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program was one of the sub-projects. The theme of this program was connecting Taiwan to a global network. It not only introduced Taiwan’s liberal arts and biological diversities to the international community but also acquired scattered relics and biological materials overseas through various cooperative approaches. International Collaboration of Taiwan Cultural and Historical Resources Acquisition Project (2009-2012) was established in 2009 as the sub-project of International Collaboration and Promotion of Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program. For the goal of supplementing archival source and research materials and improving the environment of academic research in Taiwan, it convened several National-level institutions to jointly acquire scattered archives overseas.

The cooperative strategies of the ICTAP were acquiring digital archives and adding value to the digital content. Each institute took its own role to jointly accomplish the project. The Institute of Taiwan History and the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, executed the overseas acquiring project of archival documents and geospatial data separately. The National Central Library concentrated on collecting rare books and the National Palace Museum acquired historical maps. These institutes concentrated their efforts in order to:

  1. Establish international collaborative network and acquire Taiwan historical sources scattered overseas.
  2. Improve strategies and practice of international collaboration through field investigation.
  3. Integrate Taiwan’s cultural and historical sources and promote the accomplishments of acquiring sources overseas.

The ICTAP successfully ended in 2012 when the National Sci-Tech Programs was completed. During the executing period, our members had visited 14 archival institutions in China, Japan, Russia, the United States and South Korea. The acquired result can be categorized in four fields: old archival documents, rare books, photographic materials and digital sources. For more details please refer to Gallery page.

ICTAP and ITH ›


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