BEIJING, May 30 -- It was "love at first listen" when Avery Davis sat in the concert hall of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music three years ago to hear a recital by international students playing Chinese instruments.

"The music moved me in a way I will always remember, and that is when I was truly grateful to study Chinese music," said Davis, who was a high school student at the time.

During the two-week summer music camp in Shanghai, Davis started learning to play the sheng, an ancient Chinese musical instrument.

He said his teacher chose the instrument for him because he could already play the trumpet. Both the sheng and trumpet are wind instruments and share similar techniques in performance.

Davis is now a sophomore majoring in music and Chinese at Valparaiso University in Indiana, United States. In his spare time, he plays the sheng with Meifeng Traditional Chinese Orchestra organized by the Confucius Institute at Valparaiso.

The orchestra was founded in 2010 by Prof. Jianyun Meng, the American Director of the institute, who teaches Chinese and music at the university. The orchestra now has more than 20 members and has performed for many important events in the area.

During last week's Nishan Forum, an international conference on cross-cultural communications in east China's Shandong Province, an ensemble of seven performers selected from the orchestra were invited to put on a performance at the event. Rosie Murray, a third year music major at Valparaiso, is the principal erhu (a two-stringed Chinese fiddle) player of the ensemble. Her mother has been teaching English in China for several years, and she spent three years in China as a teenager before she returned to the US and began studying at Valparaiso.

"I grew up with Chinese music," she said. "When I entered college and found that there was a chance for me to study Chinese musical instruments, I just joined the orchestra without any hesitation."

According to Murray, traditional Chinese music is like poetry with simple but attractive melodies.

"The emotion conveyed by Chinese music is often pure and natural. I love the classic piece "Jasmine Flower" - the music is all about the beauty of a flower, which is very charming and touching," she said.

Dennis Friesen-Carper, a professor of composition and conducting at Valparaiso University, is the music director of the orchestra. He has arranged several famous pieces of traditional Chinese music for the Western orchestra.

"There is an inherent beauty in Chinese music, for it is built around melodies, and the little nuances of the melodies are just fascinating," he said.

Compared with Chinese music, in which melody is predominant, Western symphonic music is more about harmony and different instruments working together, he said.

The 60-year-old maestro said there should be no problem creating a fusion of music from different cultures, since the development of any traditional music is inseparable from the influence of other cultures.

"For example, the traditional Chinese instrument pipa was originally from Iran," he said. "A fusion of beautiful musical elements from different countries should absolutely be the trend forward."

Meng said music can make communication happen in an instant among people from different cultural backgrounds, and it is a shortcut for one to gain a deeper understanding of a foreign culture.

The common love for Chinese music has brought the musicians of the orchestra together and helped them better understand the beauty of Chinese culture.

Davis said his interest in Chinese music is unusual to his friends. However, the Chinese clothes he wears during performances have inspired much admiration.

"I have two traditional Chinese jackets, one brown and one red. I rotate them through performances and I feel so proud when wearing them," he said.

Murray said she has always wanted to learn Chinese calligraphy, and her only obstacle is that she has not yet found a teacher.

"I heard it is very hard to learn, but I will definitely give it a try," she said.

They both plan to come to work in China after graduation.

"Maybe I will be an English and music teacher here. China feels like home," Murray said.

David Rawland, the Associate Provost of Valparaiso University, told Xinhua that CIVU has been hosting a Chinese music festival called the Great Lakes Confucius Institute Music Festival every September since its inception in 2008. The festival has drawn thousands of students and professional musicians from both China and America to play Chinese music together while making friends.

Meng said the musical festival has become one of the largest of its type in the Midwest and an important window to Chinese culture for locals, and its scale and influence are still growing.

"There is a huge demand for American students to learn music of other cultures and to learn other cultures through music. I believe more and more people, both Chinese and American, will join us in this meaningful cause," he said.