In the spring of 1951, Wan Tongshu, a 28-year-old teacher at the Central Conservatory of Music, was entrusted with an urgent mission: to preserve the fading melodies of the Xinjiang Uygur Muqam, a centuries-old musical tradition then on the brink of disappearance.
Wan set off for Xinjiang with his wife and infant daughter, embarking on a grueling journey of nearly 3,000 kilometers by train, truck and military aircraft. After arriving in Urumqi — then known as Dihua — he met Turdi Ahun, a folk artist in his 70s believed to be the only person in Xinjiang capable of performing the complete Twelve Muqam, a major regional style among different schools of the Muqam tradition.
Hailed as the "mother of Uygur music", Muqam is a vast artistic system that blends singing, dance, folk music and classical composition. It has been inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
But in the early 1950s, the tradition faced an uncertain future. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, many folk artists lived in poverty and occupied a low social status, leaving traditional art forms vulnerable to decline. Against that backdrop, Wan devoted himself to preserving what would later become one of the most treasured expressions of Uygur cultural heritage.
Recently, the biographical film Wan Tongshu was released nationwide, drawing renewed attention to the ethnomusicologist's decades-long dedication to safeguarding Muqam — a story that had long remained little known outside musical circles.
Structured through modern-day flashbacks, the film primarily unfolds between 1951 and 1960, chronicling how Wan, assisted by his wife and fellow experts, overcame obstacles to record and notate the music scores. One of the greatest challenges was securing one of only two wire recorders then available in China — a request that ultimately received special approval from Premier Zhou Enlai after appeals were made to the central government.
The hardships extended far beyond difficult living conditions. During his years in Xinjiang, Wan suffered the devastating loss of his three-month-old child to measles. Yet even after completing the notation of scores of the full set of the Twelve Muqam — which comprises around 300 melodies, 4,000 lines of lyrics and more than 20 hours of music — he chose not to leave.
Driven by his passion for the art form, Wan continued traveling across remote parts of Xinjiang, from Qira county to Kashgar and Hami, documenting melodies, lyrics and performance styles before they vanished.
Jiang Hong, the film's screenwriter, told China Daily that the project began in 2023, the year Wan died at the age of 99 in Xiamen, Fujian province, prompting widespread mourning within China's music community.
A Xinjiang native himself, Jiang said he had never heard Wan's name until then, despite being 49 years old — a realization that revealed how easily such stories can fade with time.
To reconstruct Wan's life, the creative team combed through archival documents, old photographs and interviews with people connected to that era. One of their most valuable sources was Wan's wife, Lian Xiaomei, who moved with him to Xiamen in 1999 to live closer to their children.
Lian, then 93, spent a week sharing memories with the production team in a hotel room in Xiamen. "Her memory was still remarkably sharp. She had a special charm that captivated listeners, even when recounting painful experiences from the past," Jiang recalls.
