The conference seeks to foster new basic research into the identification and interpretation of musical historical sources spanning from Beijing to Lisbon and beyond in the Age of Discovery (understood broadly as from the Han through the Qing dynasties).  Among other possibilities, it addresses such questions as: What role did each other’s music play in academies, courts, and coffee/tea houses? How did Chinese rites and the Chinese Rites Controversy influence musical discourses?  Did both cultures coincidentally solve the riddle of equal temperament, or can a line of transmission be uncovered?  How did the two cultures’ musical practices and/or theories intersect, irrespective of transmission?  By bringing together an array of scholars, it is hoped that we may together navigate this topic’s historical, linguistic, and institutional challenges, cultivating all the while cross-cultural dialogue.  Any discovery on the history of music between China and the West is welcome.zz