The MTSU Center for Chinese Music and Culture

On March 17, 2016, the MTSU Center for Chinese Music and Culture officially opened. As the only Chinese music and culture research institution in North America that integrates teaching, performance and research, the Center for Chinese Music and Culture (CCMC) aims to promote cultural exchanges and mutual understanding, and share the long-standing and profound Chinese music with people around the world through various music events, teaching and experiences. This not only provides more educational resources for Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) students and the public, but also becomes a link for regional cultural exchanges and promotes the exchanges between the Chinese and American people in music and culture.

CCMC is adjacent to the metropolitan Nashville community known worldwide as Music City USA. A 3,200-square-foot space at MTSU’s Miller Education Center, CCMC is composed of a gallery of Chinese musical instruments, a library and archives, multi-function hall and rehearsal hall. Since its inauguration in the autumn of 2016, the teachers of CCMC have spread and popularized traditional Chinese music and culture, which are warmly welcomed by friends from all over the world.

CCMC currently exhibits more than 100 musical instruments representative of various ethnic groups in China, of which the core exhibits are a set of 24 replicas of Zeng Houyi chimes during the ancient Warring States Period, equipped with a set of 18 chimes, produced by Chief Engineer Li Mingan, director of Wuhan Precision Instrument Manufacturing Factory, and supervised by Hubei Provincial Museum. This set of chimes is the only replica in North America. The number of the collection of Chinese music, opera, history and other books and audio materials in CCMC is nearly 1,000 copies. CCMC and Middle Tennessee State Library plan to include CCMC's books in the campus library catalog for global retrieval. At the same time, CCMC works closely with the propaganda organs of MTSU to promote itself through the media and various channel platforms. CCMC also prints brochures and various event previews, and establishes the website and updates its contents on foreign online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook-book, and Twitter.

Since the fall semester of 2016, the Chinese Band in Middle Tennessee State has been listed as a credit course in the Department of Music at MTSU. The band is guided by Han Mei, director of CCMC, and the band members are mainly students from MTSU and local music fans. CCMC is the first and largest Chinese music center in North America, using the teaching mode of combining traditional musical instruments, modern teaching technology LED screen display and console control, to achieve good audio-visual effects. With the cooperation of the music teachers of the center, the band in this university has grown rapidly and has held many concerts.

In addition to offering one-on-one professional courses on Chinese national musical instruments such as guzheng (Chinese Zither), Pipa, Erhu fiddle, bamboo flute, sheng, Xun, and Yangqin, CCMC also undertakes the teaching of Chinese music in the public credit courses of "Introduction to Music", "Music Appreciation", and "World Music" at MTSU, teaching students of all majors and grades. The teachers of CCMC introduced Chinese music and culture through on-site explanations, demonstration performances, and interactive experiences. One student said: " Touching and playing these instruments is very different from just looking at pictures of these instruments in class!"

Apart from teaching activities, CCMC has presented  various forms of comprehensive art festivals, academic seminars, concerts, lectures, workshops, paintings and book exhibitions, etc., and has become an important base for the promotion of Chinese culture in North America.

In January 2017, the Sino-US Yangqin and Dulcimer Dialogue Concert between Professor Liu Yuening of the Central Conservatory of Music and American dulcimer champion David Mahler premiered at the Middle Tennessee State University Concert Hall. The concert was hosted by CCMC, and the performers on the stage included Dr. Han Mei; Dong Nan, associate professor of the China Conservatory of Music; Yu Wei, a Canadian multi-talented musician, and Mi Xuanye, a master student of Yangqin from the Central Conservatory of Music who taught at CCMC. At the concert, Liu Yuening also had a dialogue and improvisation with Mahler on the art of the Chinese Yangqin and American dulcimer. No sooner did they complete performance than the audience stood up and expressed their heartfelt thanks and admiration to the musicians with lasting applause.

In October 2019, CCMC held a music exchange event themed "From the Yellow River to the Mississippi River", inviting Su Yang, a famous Chinese folk musician, to Nashville, a musical mecca for country music fans, to collaborate with two-time Grammy Award winner and bluegrass musician Jim Lauderdale to carry out workshops, performances. Many spectators who participated in the event expressed their excitement when hearing the Chinese voice that shook the soul like Su Yang’s again, and also hoped that the fields of art and culture between China and the United States could increase exchanges and continuously enhance mutual understanding.

By holding various music and cultural exchange activities, CCMC promotes dialogue and interaction among art and cultural institutions, music and cultural circles of the two countries, opening up more music and cultural exchange channels, and injecting new impetus into the internationalization of Chinese music.