6 July 2009

SHOWCASE: Shzr Ee Tan

Shzr Ee Tan is an active musician with a background in classical piano, tango/Balkan accordion, Chinese and Okinawan lutes (sanxian and sanshin), the Chinese fiddle (erhu) and various East Asian percussion instruments. She is a member of several ensembles based in London, including a jazz-improv quartet, a tango band, a Korean percussion band and a Chinese silk and bamboo ensemble. Some of the venues in which she has appeared include the South Bank, the Truman Brewery and The Arts House (Singapore). Shzr Ee also has experience as a print journalist in Asia, having worked for an extensive period of time as an arts correspondent for The Straits Times in Singapore, and thereafter magazines and newspapers in the Far East on a freelance basis. She continues to contribute columns on film, music and culture to various media.

Shzr Ee Tan is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, currently studying music activities on new media platforms in the Chinese diaspora. Her research touches on phenomena ranging from viral videos to politico-musical activism on the internet. Shzr Ee completed her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, investigating Amis aboriginal folksong of Taiwan in interacting contexts of the village, the cultural troupe, the popular music industry and Christian missionisation. Her other interests include music and politics, urban ethnomusicology and connections between music and food cultures. She has published on music, kitsch, media and politics in Singapore, as well as on aboriginal song in Taiwan. Her work has appeared in scholarly journals including Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of American Folklore, Chime and Wacana Seni.. Shzr Ee currently teaches at Royal Holloway, and has also lectured at Nanhua University (Taiwan) and the Lasalle College of the Arts (Singapore).. She presents her work regularly at international conferences and has spoken at meets and seminars held by the International Council for Traditional Music, Society for Ethnomusicology, SOAS, the London School Of Economics, Cambridge University, City University, Hong Kong University, National Chenggong University, Chime and the South East Asian Regional Exchange Programme, among other institutions.

Name : Shzr Ee Tan
Location : London, UK
Web : myspace.com/shzreetan, http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Music/Staff/ShzrEeTan.html
Contact: shzree@yahoo.com