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By Mu Qian, June 2025
On the afternoon of May 31, 2025, at 4 p.m., the New York restaurant Beef Up Noodle was packed—not primarily with people there for the noodles, but with those gathered to witness the birth of a world music series titled From Zayton to New York.
Zayton—an Arabic transliteration of Citong, present-day Quanzhou in southeastern China—was one of the earliest entry points for Muslims arriving in China via the Maritime Silk Road. Mentioned in the writings of both Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, this cosmopolitan port city was home to an extraordinary convergence of cultures and faiths in the Middle Ages, with Buddhist temples, Hindu shrines, Manichaean halls, Daoist temples, mosques, and Christian churches standing side by side—exemplifying an unprecedented fusion of civilizations.
On the other side of the world, New York, known as New Amsterdam during its Dutch colonial period and as Lenapehoking by the Indigenous Lenape people, received its current name in 1664 when the British renamed it in honor of the Duke of York. The English city of York itself traces its origins back to Roman times.
From Zayton to New York is a concert series that explores the movement of people and the transmission of music, culture, and ideas carried by immigrants. The title reflects both historical depth and geographic breadth. Temporally, it signals layers of accumulated history; spatially, it embraces a global musical landscape. The journey from Zayton to New York may follow the ancient westward route along the Silk Road to Europe and across the Atlantic—or it may head eastward across the Pacific to the American West Coast, continuing overland to the East Coast—mirroring the path taken by many Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. Alternatively, one might imagine traveling the Maritime Silk Road across the Indian Ocean to East Africa and then over the Atlantic to New York. In a contemporary variation, some travelers in recent years have first journeyed to Latin America, then crossed the Darién Gap on foot to reach the United States via the Mexican border. In essence, From Zayton to New York is a metaphor for global human migration, encompassing any point between these two cities.
I, too, am part of the journey. Eleven years ago, I left China to pursue a PhD in ethnomusicology in the UK, and six years ago I came to work in New York, becoming part of this multicultural city. Tottenham, the place where I lived in London, is regarded as the most ethnically diverse area in Europe, where 300 languages are spoken on a daily basis. After I moved to Queens, however, I learned that 600 languages are spoken here daily.
My friend Andrew Cowell, an ethnomusicologist who studies Mongolian music, once said that New York might be the only city in the world where you can find members of every Mongol tribe. I also have a theory that any ethnic group in the world can be found in New York. If you haven’t encountered them, it’s not because they aren’t here, but simply because you haven’t had the chance. Our task is to create those chances—to let people discover the musical cultures of different communities.
I have been planning to organize music events that celebrate New York’s rich diversity since I moved here, but as a lone individual, I never took the leap. That changed in April this year, when I met Eve Shi, the founder of See See Records. We hit it off instantly. I would serve as curator, Eve as producer. A month later, we launched the first event of From Zayton to New York: Voice of the Mongols.
See See Records is a U.S.-registered label dedicated to collecting and releasing traditional Asian music recordings. It has already released an EP of mandolin-accompanied Amdo Tibetan songs titled Echoes of the Snowland Cuckoo, available on Chinese platforms like Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music, as well as international ones like Spotify, Bandcamp, and YouTube. A full-length album of Amdo Tibetan music is currently in production, along with several other projects centered on Asian traditional music.
Beef Up Noodle is a Lanzhou beef noodle restaurant founded by Chinese Muslims, recently selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 Best Restaurants in New York City in 2025. Its owners are committed to fostering inter-community exchange in New York. The home-style northwestern Chinese food they serve aligns perfectly with our community-based music mission. We focus not on stars but on cultural bearers rooted in local communities. They may not be professional musicians, but they use music to maintain their ethnic identity and traditions.
For our first event, we invited Anand Avirmed, a 24-year-old second-generation Mongolian-American born in the U.S. From a young age, Anand developed a passion for traditional music and trained both in the U.S. and Mongolia in khoomei (throat singing), morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), tovshuur, igil, choor, jew’s harp, and other Mongolian instruments—he also plays guitar. After watching a video of him throat singing while playing guitar, we decided to invite him to perform at our launch event.
Although born in the U.S., Anand has always lived within a Mongolian cultural environment. Before the show, I asked if he could perform on the jew’s harp, but he said a shaman once told him it would bring misfortune, so he threw his jew’s harp away. While this meant we missed a chance to hear that instrument, I was very impressed by Anand’s respect and reverence for his tradition.
During the performance, Anand not only shared Mongolian musical culture but also taught the audience basic khoomei techniques. It was his first time performing in New York, having come from Virginia. The best part? More people discovered his talent. After his performance at Beef Up Noodle, the organizers of Barzakh Majlis, a bigger world music event in New York, invited him to perform in July. We hope to continue playing a bridging role—connecting communities through music and reaching wider audiences.
Beef Up Noodle holds only 60 to 70 people, but its intimate setting offers something different from formal concert venues—it brings people closer to the energy of live music. Many have heard of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, which take place in an office with only a few dozen attendees but have a global reach through video. I believe that, with better recording equipment, our Noodle Shop Concerts can also gain greater influence. We filmed and recorded our first event, and I believe we’ll only get better from here.
After our debut, many organizations and venues began reaching out to explore collaborations, including Maqam Studio, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and Flushing Town Hall. While we may expand to larger-scale events in the future, our mission will stay the same: to highlight the musical cultures of diverse communities. The series will spotlight immigrant music from around the world—music that is both global and deeply rooted in the local life of New York’s neighborhoods. Our main focus will be on traditional music from Asia, including that of China’s many ethnic groups.
From Zayton to New York is a free event, run by volunteers. In the future, we might begin charging for tickets, but for now we want to keep it open and accessible. We’re thrilled that the very first event received support from Beef Up Noodle, the New York Chinese Opera Society, and audience members. After paying the musicians, covering sound, posters, and other essentials, we still had a small surplus to support the next event.
The next event will take place at 4 PM on June 28 at Beef Up Noodle, featuring the Imal Gnawa, who will bring the trance-inducing music of Morocco’s Gnawa tradition. Originating in the 16th to 17th centuries, Gnawa music emerged from the fusion of West African musical traditions brought by enslaved people with local Moroccan culture. In all-night ceremonies known as lila, Gnawa music employs hypnotic rhythms, ritual dance, and spiritual invocation to guide participants into trance states, aiming for healing and spiritual purification.
Imal Gnawa was founded in New York by Moroccan musician Atlas Phoenix and his collaborators to carry on this rich tradition within the diaspora. Their performances cross cultural boundaries, awaken collective memory, and reveal the spiritual power of sound. In today’s often unwelcoming climate for immigrants in the United States, we hope our event can offer support and solidarity to immigrant communities.
Friends in New York are warmly invited to join us for the second installment of From Zayton to New York — Imal Gnawa: Moroccan Trance Music. Admission is free with RSVP. For those not in New York, a video of Imal Gnawa’s performance will be available at a later date.