The ongoing sixth Beijing Music Festival will present a unique guqin improvisational concert tonight at an equally unique venue, the ancient-style Dongyuan Theatre near the Forbidden City. 

Li Xiangting, a 63-year-old master player, will share his understanding of poetry from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) on the seven-stringed zither-like instrument, which dates back at least 5,000 years to the origins of Chinese civilization.

Guest artists Zhang Junying and Qu Xianhe will recite the poems for which Li will play the musical accompaniment. The audience will be encouraged to suggest other poems, for which Li will improvise as he did in successful concerts in the past few years.

When the United States spaceship Voyager was launched in 1977 to search for intelligent creatures outside our solar system, a recording of guqin music played by Guan Pinghu and a picture of the Great Wall were placed on board to represent Chinese culture.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization listed Chinese Kunqu Opera among the first group of masterpieces of oral and intangible cultural heritage in May 2001. China has since applied for guqin music to be included in the list.

Yu Long, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, said: "Historically, the guqin has been viewed as an important symbol of Chinese culture and the instrument most expressive of the essence of Chinese music, so the music festival held in Beijing should present such a unique Chinese concert."

His choice of musician was Li Xiangting, one of the country's most influential contemporary guqin players and one who has devoted himself to promoting the ancient Chinese art both in China and abroad.

Li is a professor with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and has taught about 500 students from around the world since 1963.

He has performed and lectured in many countries and regions. He has held more than 40 recitals, including the world's first guqin recital at the Durham Oriental Music Festival in England in 1982 and in the Theatre de la Ville in Paris in 1992.