UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritages in China (1) (8)

Xi’an wind and percussion ensemble

The item “Xi’an wind and percussion ensemble” was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Xi’an wind and percussion ensemble, which has been played for more than a millennium in China’s ancient capital of Xi’an, in Shaanxi Province, is a type of music integrating drums and wind instruments, sometimes with a male chorus.

Scores of the music are recorded using an ancient notation system dating from the Tang and Song dynasties (seventh to thirteenth centuries). Approximately three thousand musical pieces are documented and about one hundred fifty volumes of handwritten scores are preserved and still in use.