Music and Modernity in Osaka during the Interwar years

During the interwar decases, Japanese distinguished clearly between traditional (Japanese) and modern (foreign or hybrid). Yet both were experienced as integral to mdern urban life, and incessantly combined in arts and leisture practices. Music has been negelecte in research on this perod, as has the distinctive culture of Osaka, Japans other metropolis. Collaborative analysis of a broad spectrum of musical life in the interwar Osaka region will challenge the Tokyo-centric view of Japanese modernity, and will enhance both understandings of expressive culture and national indentity and the reputation of Australian scholarship of Japanese culture.