Instrument has potential to make lasting impression on the global stage

"My father told me that the erhu portrays human emotions, especially sadness and loneliness," Guo tells China Daily.

"For me, the instrument is my connection with my father. Whenever I play the erhu, I am having a conversation with my father."

Besides the erhu, Guo also plays Western instruments, such as the violin, the cello and the piano.

"My father never expected me to be like him - an erhu musician," he adds.

"He was very open-minded and supportive of my choices."

By the time Guo graduated from the Shenyang Music Conservatory with a bachelor's degree in percussion performance in 1991, pop and rock music had started to blossom in China.

So, when he taught erhu and percussion at the Liaoning Music Conservatory from 1994-99, he founded his own jazz and rock bands.

"My experiences with forming bands expanded my musical horizons and gave me a different perspective about the erhu," he says. "The instrument can be played in a different way from my father's generation."

In 2000, Guo went to France to study percussion at the National Music School in Paris, where he founded another jazz band, Dragon Jazz, which won the second prize at a European Chinese music competition in Belgium in December 2002.