Guqin virtuoso Chen Leiji will evoke China's musical past in a concert featuring works stretching over 1,000 years at the National Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday. 

While his name might not be familiar, Chen Leiji's music is recognizable to masses of Chinese fans. Director Zhang Yimou chose him to play during the calligraphy segment of the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

"I never thought I would participate in the Olympics," said Chen of the experience, which he performed on an instrument dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). "I prepared plucking that first note of the performance for a year. That sound represented the spark of the Chinese cultural renaissance."

With a more than 3,000-year history and intangible cultural heritage listing from UNESCO, the guqin (literally "ancient stringed instrument") inspired NASA to include a recording of ancient melody "Liu Shui" ("Flowing Water") on the instrument on the 1977 Voyager Space Probe. Despite this, the seven-stringed instrument remains relatively unknown in the West - not that Chen is worried.

"Does the West push the piano or violin? As long as these instruments create beautiful music, people don't have to," said Chen, who studied piano and conducting in France during the late 1980s. "If music is played well, people will naturally seek it."

With its intimate timbres and free song forms, the guqin was regarded in ancient China as an instrument associated with poets and philosophers. It was an instrument of deep, personal self-expression.

"It produces sounds that seek to imply rather than state outright," Chen explained. "It is a spiritual instrument that speaks through implications."

However, it also touched on other human traits in the 1425 piece "Drunken Ecstasy." "It has an upbeat rhythm, and recalls the feeling of friends getting together and drinking," said Chen of the piece. "What's more universal than that?"

When: Sunday, February 5, 7:30 PM

Where: National Center for the Performing Arts

Contact: 6655-0000