Strings of traditional music bind overseas audience

A group of young performers entertain audiences with a waist-drum dance show at US Disneyland in February. [Photo/China Daily]

The growing interest in China globally has led to a boom in culture exchanges, and now a new initiative aims to take the country's traditional music to foreign audiences.Chen Nan reports.

Visitors to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta last month were surprised to find more than a dozen Chinese, wearing traditional clothing playing bamboo flutes and Chinese stringed instruments like the erhu, guzheng and pipa.

On May 8, a crowd gathered on the roof terrace of leading investment firm Goldman Sachs in New York and listened to the same group play century-old traditional Chinese songs with ancient instruments.

"Trees cannot grow into the sky, but music can," said one audience member after the show.

The musicians who surprised and delighted people throughout the United States, are members of the China National Orchestra. Their performances in the US were part of a project run by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

Called Qin Tai, which literally means "the table of Chinese traditional stringed instruments", the project aims to connect China to the world by introducing traditional Chinese music to foreign audiences.

Li Xiaolin, president of the association, says the name of the project came from three historic sites named after Qin Tai in Sichuan, Hubei and Shandong provinces. Each place embodies the spirituality and elegance of traditional Chinese music.

The phrase Qin Tai is also the name of the place in an old Chinese legend. It is where Yu Boya played his instrument, a zither, with his friend Zhong Zhiqi, a woodcutter. Zhong was the only one who understood Yu's music. After Zhong died, Yu broke his zither and never played it again.