The country's first music museum, the Heilongjiang Music Museum opened to the public on January 22 in Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

Inside the Heilongjiang Revolution Museum, the private-owned museum gives a brief history of music in Heilongjiang over the past 100 years. It has been established with the private collection of Miao Di, a researcher with the Heilongjiang Art Research Institute.

Out of his love and passion for music, Miao has collected more than 500 items related to the history of music in Heilongjiang Province over the past decade.

The museum consists of over 400 pictures of musicians who significantly contributed to the development of the music in Heilongjiang in the 20th century, and at least 100 musical instruments from different time periods.

The most precious items in the museum are some original manuscripts by top composers and writers, such as Wang Luobin, Fu Gengchen, Guo Song and Xing Lai, many of which are labelled as national treasures.

Miao hopes his efforts will help preserve the local music traditions.

Visitors can see the J Becker tuning fork alongside other Chinese instruments like erhu.

Harbin was once dubbed "Oriental Moscow" in history, and Northeast China with the Far East of Russia became connected here with the construction of the China-eastern railway in the late 19th century.

The city's orchestra was once the best in the country during the 1920s and many world-renowned musical performers come to perform in Harbin during that time.

"Foreign influence cannot be excluded from the history of music in the region as it played a brilliant and active role," Miao said.

Time: 9 am-3:30 pm, daily

Place: No 229, Yiman Street, Nangang District

Tel: 0451-5362-7135

(China Daily February 3, 2006)