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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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II. The Chance for Visiting Taiwanese Plains Aborigines

After Thomson went to Taiwan, he mainly stayed in Tainan, which was one of the places where Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell did his medical missionary work. Dr. Maxwell came to Taiwan for his medical missionary work five or six years earlier than Thomson so that he was more familiar with Taiwan than Thomson was. When Dr. Maxwell first began his medical missionary work in Tainan, he faced difficulty since the Han Chinese refused him. Luckily, he met William Alexander Pickering soon after that. At that time, Mr. Pickering had influence since he actively participated many events and established connections with different groups. He had served in customs, played an important role in camphor trading, helped consuls from the U.K and the U.S. to tackle the issues regarding Taiwan, and visited the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan frequently. Contributed to Mr. Pickering’s language ability and his good connections with people in Taiwan, Dr. Maxwell could visit several aboriginal groups when he felt frustrated at not being able to do his medical missionary work. In fact, those aborigines treated them more kindly than the Han Chinese did. Because of Mr. Pickering’s assistance, Dr. Maxwell developed a new route to do his medical missionary work and also reduced the distance from the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan. This is why Dr. Maxwell took John Thomson to visit his aboriginal friends in 1871.

‹ I. John Thomson’s background up III. John Thomson’s footprints in Formosa ›

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