Edwin Li is a musicologist and music theorist whose interdisciplinary research theorizes music and listening in ways that contest pedigreed paradigms and reflect intercultural complexities. His work engages broadly with discourses of decolonization, semiotics, aesthetics, affect, the interplay of music and language, and the works of Gustav Mahler.
Li's first monograph, Border Listening: Decolonizing Western Art Music from Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, under contract), explores contingencies of decolonial listening through stories of historiography, translation, joy, and love. Thinking within and from the pragmatic and symbolic potency of Hong Kong's border, the book interrogates the definitions, conditions, and aspirations of decolonization. Through music, it examines the theoretical limitations and practical challenges of decolonial efforts amid complex geohistorical realities, while expanding the potential frameworks for decolonial engagement. He is currently developing a second monograph on vernacular aesthetics in Hong Kong's musical cultures.
Li's research was supported by grants from the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Society for Music Theory, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. He has presented his work at the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, Semiotic Society of America, Society for Music Theory, Royal Musical Association, and Society for Ethnomusicology. His scholarship spans a wide range of topics—from timbre and Chinese contemporary music to philosophy of video games—and has been published (or is forthcoming) in journals such as Analytical Approaches to World Musics, Journal of Sound and Music in Games, Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, Music & Letters, and Journal of the Royal Musical Association. Li is a recipient of the Adam Krims Award from the Society for Music Theory's Popular Music Interest Group, and the co-editor (with Anna Yu Wang and Chris Stover) of a special issue of Music Theory Online in 2024 on translations of music-theoretical sources from under-represented languages.
Li was a Jockey Club Scholar at The University of Hong Kong, where he obtained his BA in Music with First Class Honors, and a Pembroke-King's Scholar at the University of Cambridge. He earned his PhD in Music Theory from Harvard University, where he was awarded Certificates of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. At CUHK, he received teaching grants to develop virtual courseware, and was recognized with the Faculty of Arts Outstanding Teaching Award.
Book:
Border Listening: Decolonizing Western Art Music from Hong Kong. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, under contract.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
"Mishearing Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde." In Gustav Mahler's Sound, ed. Tobias Janz and Christian Utz. Hollitzer, forthcoming.
"Notating, Manipulating, and Embodying Timbre: Tablature of the Chinese Seven-stringed Zither." Journal of Music Theory (forthcoming, 2026). Co-authored with Tse Chun-Yan.
"Hermeneutic Mischief and the Affect of Sonic Remainder." In Music and the Politics of Censorship: From the Fascist Era to the Digital Age, ed. James Garratt. Brepols, 2025. https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503618463-1
"Re-translating Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 150, no. 2 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2025.10043
"Music as Language of the Upper Realm: A Translation of Li Tsing-chu's A General Treatise on Music (1930/1933)." Music Theory Online 30, no. 4 (2024). https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.30.4.11
"Introduction: Music Theory in the Plural." Music Theory Online 30, no. 4 (2024). Co-authored with Chris Stover and Anna Yu Wang. https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.30.4.6
"Towards a Cross-Cultural Theory of Tone-Tune Mapping: A Comparative Study of Cantonese and Yorùbá." Analytical Approaches to World Musics 12, no. 1 (2024): 1–33. Co-authored with Aaron Carter-Ényì and David Àiná. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13953058
"中国特色作曲技术探微—当代室内乐创作中十二音技法和音响音色技法的运用" [Composition Techniques with Chinese Characteristics: Twelve-tone Techniques and Timbre in Chinese Contemporary Chamber Music]. Art of Music: Journal of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music 音乐艺术 3 (2024): 27–40. Co-authored with Zheng Yan. https://doi.org/10.19359/j.cn31-1004/j.2024.03.002
"Theorizing Affect in Mahler." Music & Letters 105, no. 3 (2024): 313–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcae035
"Line Rider and Ludomusical Excesses." Journal of Sound and Music in Games 5, no. 1 (2024): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsmg.2024.5.1.1
"Cantopop and Speech-Melody Complex." Music Theory Online 27, no. 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.27.1.6
"Integrationism and Music Theory's Resistance." In Semiotics 2019: New Frontiers in Semiotics, ed. Geoffrey Ross Owens and Donna West. Philosophy Documentation Center, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5840/cpsem20197
"Eco-Music Theory." Ecomusicology Review 7 (2019). https://ecomusicology.info/li2019/
- MUSC3233 Cantopop and Musicological Perspectives
- MUSC3243 Early Mahler
- MUSC3432 Tonal Music Analysis
- MUSC3892 Approaches to Popular Music
- MUSC4513 Senior Pedagogy Project
- MUSC5103 Music and Popular Culture in Hong Kong
- MUSC6357 Current Trends in Musicology