Musical diplomacy's perfect harmony

Yu Long, artistic director of China Philharmonic Orchestra.

An encore lined with silk

The China Philharmonic Orchestra's two-night appearance in Teheran next week will be the fourth stop on a 14-day tour taking in five countries on the Silk Road.

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Iran－the last venue will be Greece－have long been absent from the itineraries of orchestras and other musical performers from China and elsewhere because of a lack of proper facilities, the logistics of getting to them and, in some cases, an unstable political environment.

However, the China Philharmonic received strong impetus to redress matters when President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, says Yu Long, the orchestra's artistic director.

"In ancient times the Silk Road was a network of trade and cultural transmission routes connecting the West and East. The orchestra wants to bring music to people along the route and to build a music bridge between East and West."

The latest tour is somewhat of a diplomatic encore for the orchestra, which played for Pope Benedict in the Vatican in 2008.