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Korla theater had come into style in the nearby capital of Turfan, and the resulting income had brought other arts—Sogdian inlay, Chinese zither players, Kuchean dancers.

“We had this weird guitar ensemble,” says Graham, “with lots of different guitars and mandolins, mandocellos, a zither, some keyboards — all old-fashioned stuff — bass, some percussion, a couple of cellos and a harmonica.”

He has sipped tea in a garden with President Emmanuel Macron of France, treating him to a performance of an ancient Chinese zither.

“But that’s the world I came from. I had a three-manual harpsichord, and I played that. I played electric piano and zither, or something wild like that.”

After what he describes as a “sound vision,” a moment during meditation in which he was able to hear and experience those vast, universal reverberations, he bought his first zither.