Hither & thither, the majesty of a zither

Introducing the yangqin's charms to the world is something that Liu Yuening, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and artistic director of this year's music festival, has made her mission for more than 30 years. Looking back, she says, pursuing that task seems to have been her destiny.

Liu's own introduction to the instrument when she was 9 came as the result of happenstance, a friend of the family being an avid player. All these later Liu sees the yangqin as being well suited to the zeitgeist, a Chinese traditional instrument with foreign origins making its presence felt in an era of globalization.

"The yangqin is so much more than simply a Chinese traditional musical instrument. It has this universal quality and can have a really profound impact in the modern era."

Liu sees herself as one of the first beneficiaries of China's reform and opening-up. She was enrolled in the Central Conservatory of Music Middle School immediately after changes in education in 1977.

She and a few classmates were thus given special attention, even having the chance to perform in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and in the documentary Chunlei (Spring Bud) as a representative of young yangqin learners when she was 12.

After completing her undergraduate studies at the conservatory she stayed to teach and research, aiming to promote Chinese music to the world.

She has done research at academies overseas, including as a visiting scholar at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, and as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.