Rulan Chao Pian
| Rulan Chao Pian 卞趙如蘭 |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
April 20, 1922 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Died | November 30, 2013 Cambridge, Massachusetts, |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Ethnomusicology, Asian studies |
| Institutions | Harvard University |
| Doctoral students | Joseph S. C. Lam, Amy K. Stillman |
| Known for | Study of music in China, Chinese opera. |
Rulan Chao Pian (simplified Chinese: 卞赵如兰; traditional Chinese: 卞趙如蘭), née Rulan Chao (b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 20, 1922, d. Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 30, 2013) was an ethnomusicologist and scholar of Chinese language and literature and was one of the first ten female full professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
Rulan Chao Pian's parents, the linguist Yuen Ren Chao and the physician and food writer Buwei Yang Chao, were resident in Cambridge beginning in 1920 after Y.R. was appointed to the faculty at Harvard. After travels in China and France, the family returned to the United States, traveling to Hawaii, New Haven, and Washington D.C. She studied some piano as a youth, though frequent travels made this difficult. Pian enrolled in Radcliffe College where she received a Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts in music history (Western music) in 1943 (dated 1944) and 1946, respectively, and a Ph.D. in both East Asian Languages and in Music in 1960. Her music instructors included "Doc" Archibald T. Davison, Edward Ballantine, A. Tillman Merritt, John Ward and Walter Piston. She taught at Harvard continuously from 1947 beginning as a teaching assistant in Chinese language, before being promoted to instructor and lecturer. In 1974 she became Professor in the Department of Music and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. She was one of three tenured female professors in the Harvard Music Department, one of thirteen total in the entire Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1945, she married Theodore Hsueh-Huang Pian, later a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT with whom she had a daughter, Canta Chao-po Pian. With Theodore, in 1975 she became co-master of Harvard's South House (now Cabot House), the first non-white housemasters in Harvard history. Pian was also one of the first female housemasters; a portrait of her with Chinese musical instruments hangs in the house. She retired from Harvard in 1992, but continued to teach students individually in her home, some of whom lived with her upon their arrival from China, such as the composer Lei Liang who credits her as one of his most important mentors and musical influences.
...
Wikipedia