Biography
Rulan Chao Pian (April 20, 1922 — November 30, 2013)
Rulan Chao Pian was an ethnomusicologist, a renowned scholar, and daughter of eminent Chinese linguist and Harvard professor Yuen Ren Chao and Ms. Buwei Yang. In 1945 she married Hsueh-huang Pian, who was a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.
Rulan Chao received her B.A. (1944) and M.A. (1946) in Western music history from Radcliffe College, and a Ph.D. from Harvard (1960) in East Asian Languages and Music.
In 1947, Professor Rulan Chao Pian first taught Chinese in what was then known as Harvard’s Far Eastern Languages Department, and in 1962 she became a Visiting Lecturer in Chinese music in the Music Department. In 1974, she was named tenured Professor at Harvard, one of the first women to attain this rank and the very first Chinese woman professor at the university.
Together with her father, Rulan Chao Pian created a unique study method for the Chinese language that was aimed at non-Chinese speakers, "designed for learning Chinese the hard and fast way" (Y. R. Chao, v). With this approach, she trained and inspired many who were to become the first wave of accomplished American Sinologists.
At left is the textbook that Professor Pian used for her Chinese teaching. Her father Yuen Ren Chao is the author.
As a music professor she used the latest technology to make ethnographic recordings, bringing the field site into her work in addition to traditional research methods. Her early recordings are valuable documents of traditional culture that precede the development of the modern style.
Professor Pian frequently travelled to Asia, where she collected extensive material relating to her research interests. In her classes, she often incorporated field recordings that she had made both in East Asia and the United States.
After she retired, these materials were donated to the Chinese University of Hong Kong and to the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University.
Professor Pian’s scholarship in Chinese music and language, and in education, was widely accepted both in the United States and in Asia. Her research and papers received numerous awards.
In addition to her scholarly contributions and influence as a teacher and mentor, she also founded the Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature (CHINOPERL) in collaboration with other North American Chinese scholars in 1969.
Rulan Chao Pian "is fondly remembered by all who knew her for having offered both scholarly guidance as well as exceptional hospitality. Her former students recall that her home was always open to them; several of their number lived in the Pian household for periods of time during their student years" (Faculty of Arts and Sciences Memorial Minute, February 13, 2015).
"While I lived in Mr. and Mrs. Pian's house, I was nourished not only physically, but also culturally and spiritually. Between the critical age of 21 and 29 when my world view went through a critical transformation, Mrs. Pian changed my life through her spontaneity, directness, simplicity and purity. It is not an exaggeration to say that her influence on me was as important as that of my parents." (Lei Liang)
"Many times during my years living in Cambridge, I helped Mrs. Pian prepare food for her culinary and intellectual parties at her home. As I observed her cooking and listened to her explanations on how and why she cooked things this or that way, I learned principles of learning and teaching. Master chefs or scholars prepare their products deliberately and purposefully; nothing is left for chances. And they always acknowledge their own teachers ‒ Mrs. Pian always told me how she learned from Professors Liansheng Yang and John Ward; regularly, she told me to diligently follow the musicology Professor Ward taught.
"Mrs. Pian's advice sustained my studies at Harvard. Once I complained to her that the required course of medieval chant notation was not relevant to my Chinese music studies. Wisely, she told me to look beneath the surface: I need to understand transcription not as a tool to study ancient European music, but as a way to engage with lost music of China's past." (Joseph Lam)
"Members of the Chinese academic community in Cambridge still transmit tales of the regular monthly meetings held over the years at the Pian home for discussion of Chinese music, literature, and culture, gatherings that came to be known as 'New Dialogues in Cambridge'" (Jianqiao xin yu) (Faculty of Arts and Sciences Memorial Minute, February 13, 2015).
After her retirement, Professor Pian helped compile and edit 20 volumes of her father’s works in Chinese (Zhao Yuanren quan ji) as well as the Complete musical works of Yuen Ren Chao.
In addition to her professional work, Rulan Chao Pian was also a devoted daughter, a dedicated wife, a good mother, and above all, a 20th-century Chinese American woman who had many challenges in her work and life. Through all that, she lived fully and bequeathed an enduring human legacy to her students.
Through all that, she lived fully and bequeathed an enduring human legacy to her students.
