Thesis: The Hypermobility Turn: Opera of the Future, The Future of Opera
Musicology
jingyizhang@g.harvard.edu
Jingyi Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology and an Asia Center Graduate Student Associate (GSA) at Harvard University. Previously, she holds a B.M. and M.M. in musicology and piano performance at Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University. As a music and cultural historian, her research interests center on themes of racial identity, mobility, media technology, and multilingualism in 19th to 21st century songs, opera, and theater, particularly focusing on transcultural exchanges in the Pacific Rim, which includes the US, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia.
Her dissertation, The Hypermobility Turn: Opera of The Future, The Future of Opera, was awarded two prizes from the American Musicological Society (AMS), supported by the Holmes/D’Accone Dissertation Fellowship from the AMS, the Virgil Thomson Fellowship from the Society for American Music, the Victor and William Fung Fellowship, and was honored as a finalist for the Harvard Horizons Scholars program. This work presents the hypermobility turn as a critical framework for examining decolonizing practices in contemporary operas and music theater.
Her publications range from opera to dramaturgy, Asian diasporic composers, cultural mobility, decolonial thinking, film music, and transmedia storytelling. They appear in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral & Performing Literature, Sound Stage Screen, The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema, The Theatre Times, and is forthcoming in Jazz and Culture. She has presented her research at the AMS (2019, 21, 22, 24), SEM (2019), SAM (2020, 22, 24), IMS (2022), MaMI (2020), and TOSC@Lisbon (2023), and given guest lectures at the University of Chicago, the University of Milan, and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.Her edited volume New Dramaturgies of Contemporary Opera: The Practitioners’ Perspectives is being published by Routledge in September 2024, and is the first book that approaches contemporary opera and music theater from the unique perspectives of living practitioners, particularly focusing on the voices and repertoire of historically marginalized artists and performers. Written in collaboration with composers, librettists, directors, producers, singers, dramaturgs, and administrators, it offers insight into the genesis of operas in a global context.
Jingyi’s teaching draws on her extensive research and performance background, and her training in music history, theory, ethnomusicology, and music pedagogy. She has designed and taught seminars for undergraduates and graduates with varying levels of music knowledge and diverse cultural backgrounds, and has received many teaching awards like the Carol Nott Pedagogy Prize (2015), Mini-Course Award Grant (2021), Bok Center Teaching Certificate (2021), and the Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (2020, 22, 24).
Alongside research and teaching, Jingyi actively pursues mentorship, service, and outreach aimed at inclusivity, equity, and collaboration. Having been an undergraduate research advisor, served on the AMS Committee on Race, Indigeneity, and Ethnicity, directed the World Music Ensemble, and served as the Conference Chair of the Graduate Music Forum, she is committed to breaking down perceived barriers associated with musical knowledge and performance, and supporting historically underrepresented students.