More than 600 experts in traditional music and dance from more than 56 countries and regions attended, discussing preservation of traditional music worldwide; efforts in China were a major topic.

The International Council for Traditional Music is an NGO founded in 1947 in formal consultative relations with UNESCO. It aims to promote study, performance, preservation and documentation of traditional folk music, as well as dance from all countries. It organizes world conferences, study groups and meetings.

The council's meeting in Shanghai this month was the first-ever session here; it had convened in Fujian province in 2004 and in Hong Kong in 1991.

China has 56 ethnic groups and a rich and diverse traditional musical culture. Yunnan province, in the country's southwest, is a region with the most minority groups - 25.

Yang Yandi, vice president of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, says the music is precious because it's closely related to the daily life, cultures and the natural environment in which it was born.

"To a degree, it was naturally born with people's lives, rather than intentionally composed as an art form," Yang says. "It is unique and irreplaceable to the regional culture, just as genes are to a human being. For example, you never see peacock dance in costal regions where there are hardly any peacock."

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