"Chinese culture has achieved its current brilliant glory, and each ethnic group has its own unique contribution," Zhang Tiantong says. As the Daur (skilled in singing and dancing) ethnic minority group lacks its own written language, the music they have created has become the unique recording of the ethnic group's history. The Ewenki and Oroqen ethnic minority groups were facing similar situations. Zhang was determined to do something to ensure the inheritance of the ethnic cultures, and to spread their spirit. "This is also the responsibility of a contemporary scholar," Zhang has said.
Songs from the Fields, compiled by Zhang and published (in November 2024) by People's Music Electronic Audio and Video Publishing House, outlines the folk-song maps of three, small-population ethnic groups — the Daur, Oroqen and Ewenki — in northern China. The set has 16 CDs, containing 350 traditional folk songs, performed by 56 singers, and two books, one a collection of the songs' lyrics and the other a report οf the field investigations involving the three, small-population ethnic groups.
The set has been hailed by Fan Ziyin, a composer, musicologist and professor, in the Composition Department, with China Conservatory of Music. Fan has described the set as "a forward-thinking and practical treatise." In Fan's opinion, the set is an academic achievement of substantial depth and significance, which embodies and fulfills the systematic inheritance and preservation of cultural genes, and which especially nurtures cultural resilience.
The compilation is not only a powerful summary of Zhang's 20-plus years of deep research in the field of ethnic music, but also a true reflection of her academic accumulation, and intellectual contributions, based on field investigations since focusing (in 2005) on the research οf ethnic music in northern China.
Zhang, a professor with China Conservatory of Music, has conducted research and fieldwork involving traditional Chinese music for nearly 20 years. She has focused especially on the collection, organization and research into the traditional music of ethnic minorities, with small populations, in northern China. Zhang has made several visits to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Heilongjiang Province, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and other provinces and regions.
On December 5, 2023, Zhang received the ninth Capital Ethnic Unity and Progress Award for her devotion to researching and protecting ethnic groups' folk music (widely considered to be intangible cultural heritage).
Is the perfect integration of Zhang's personal academic interests and the direction of the nation's cultural development a coincidence? οr is it an inevitability? Everything begins with a special, academic connection.
Curiosity and Passion
The traditional music of each ethnic minority group is a unique, and irreplaceable, treasure; combined, the groups' traditional music creates a vivid portrayal of China's excellent traditional culture.
In 2002, Zhang graduated with a master's degree in music education from China Conservatory of Music. After she graduated, she accepted a job in the library of China Conservatory of Music. While working at the library, Zhang read many books, and she gained a deeper understanding of traditional Chinese music.
In August 2005, Zhang attended the "First National Academic Symposium on Ewenki, Oroqen and Daur Ethnic Folk Culture and Art," where she met music theorist Zhao Songguang. "Research into the music of ethnic groups, especially with relatively small populations, in the north is blank, and this will be your future academic research area," Zhao suggested to Zhang.
Curious about the unknown field, Zhang began exploring the music οf ethnic groups, especially those with relatively small populations, in northern China.
As a scholar from the majority Han ethnic group, Zhang approached the ethnic minority groups in northern China as a "primary school student," and she spared no effort in researching and protecting their traditional music. That approach earned her widespread recognition, and trust, especially among the Daur, who used the well-known love song, Beloved — "the beloved of the Daur people" — to express their acceptance of her.
"After I traveled deep into rural and pastoral areas, I realized music and dance had to be learned, and experienced, by the people. Only in this way can we truly understand the relationship between music and life. Without life, there would be no music," Zhang says.
Only after she walked deep into the forest, and οnto the grasslands, was she able to solve the mystery that had lingered in her heart for a long time. What was that mystery? Identifying what music was. That surprised her, but her greater surprise was how her fieldwork greatly broadened her academic horizons, while at the same time caused her to form an unbreakable bond with the ethnic minority groups.
Sense of Urgency
Zhang was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2016. As she faced the life-threatening illness, she transformed her personal pain into persistent strength, and she never allowed her research and fieldwork to suffer. She refused to let the loss of her hair, due to chemotherapy, affect her interactions with ethnic minority groups. For example, Zhang wore a wig when she interviewed inheritors of folk songs, recorded them performing, and worked with them to organize lyrics and document music scores.
Zhang felt a strong sense of urgency at that time. "I was still young and had time, but the elderly inheritors, who sang the ethnic songs, could not wait. The passing of an inheritor is like the disappearance of a museum,"she says.
Zhang, like virtually every other researcher, believes inheritors are the foundation of intangible cultural heritage. "When we see inheritors, we see the essence of intangible cultural heritage. Protecting intangible cultural heritage is mainly about protecting inheritors," she says.
Sigin Guqie is an outstanding Daur folk singer, and an inheritor of Wuchun (a kind of folk narrative poem) intangible cultural heritage, in Inner Mongolia. "At the end of July 2007, I conducted my first folk song survey in Molidawa Daur Autonomous Banner, Inner Mongolia. Accompanied … by my good friend, Lina (Ewenki music scholar), with the Ewenki Autonomous Banner Cultural Center, I had the honor of meeting Sister Sigin," Zhang recalls.
During the past decade, with the increase in their exchanges, Zhang and Siqin have beyond the interviewer-interviewee relationship to become "good sisters." They grew to trust and care for each other. Zhang listened to Siqin sing, and she studied Siqin's singing style. As she listened to the melody flowing from Siqin's heart, Zhang learned about the history of the Daur people, she gained a better understanding of the beautiful nature and the homeland the Daur had built, and she grew to comprehend the wisdom and positive attitude the Daur have toward life.
In August 2018, Zhang led her students in working on the "Rescue Project for Endangered Traditional Music of Chinese Ethnic Minorities," in Moqi, Inner Mongolia. Siqin performed 65 songs, including Zaendale, Wuchun, Dawu and Yadegen Yiruo, and she did her best, over three consecutive days, to leave an extremely valuable legacy of Daur traditional music for the Moqi region, the Daur ethnic group and China. Breast cancer took Siqin's life in August 2020.
During this process, Zhang and the people from the ethnic minority groups developed a familial bond. "They often thank me for my contributions to protecting their cultures. I tell them ... it is because the culture οf the Chinese nation is so profound that we should work together to protect and inherit (ethnic minority cultures)," Zhang says.
Inheritance and Promotion
Zhang realized, through field research, live display and dissemination was the best way to inherit folk songs. As such, Zhang has organized concerts, seminars and singing performances to exchange and promote the traditional music of northern China's ethnic minority groups.
In 2018, with support from China Conservatory of Music, Zhang established a students' club, "New Mountain Song Society", with the mission of promoting folk songs. Zhang believes folk singers can influence hundreds of students if they are invited to schools.
As such, Zhang has helped facilitate the inheritance of ethnic music culture within China Conservatory of Music. Since the society's establishment, the traditional Mongolian Changdiao, Chao'er, and the folk songs of Daur, Ewenki and Oroqen ethnic groups have been introduced to the students. Folk songs from the north of Shaanxi Province and Shangcheng in Henan Province have also been introduced to the students. Ma Xiaoming, a young singer who graduated from China Conservatory of Music in 2022, says, "Zhang's course of 'Modeling and Analysis of Chinese Native Folk Songs' gave me a deeper understanding of the connotation of Chinese folk songs."
Says Zhang: "'Even a stone can change the direction of a river.' This is my unwavering belief regarding the journey of research, protection and inheritance of ethnic folk songs." During the past 20 years, to preserve the roots and soul of ethnic music culture, Zhang has made various efforts in academic research and ethnic-culture inheritance and dissemination. She has done a good job in fulfilling a scholar's responsibility, and in passing on the torch.
Photos from Interviewee
(Women of China English Monthly August 2025)
Editor: Wang Shasha
