Traditional Chinese Music Department of China Conservatory of Music originally was entitled as the Instrumental Music Department which was established in 1964. It changed its name to Folk Music Department in 2006, was renamed again as Traditional Chinese Music Department in 2008. Since the department was set up, Guodong Huang, Jiansheng Xiao, Mingyuan Liu, Dehai Liu, Ruli An and Weiliang Zhang had served as the Director. The current Director of this department is Zunlian Zhang.

Traditional Chinese Music Department has a String Instruments Teaching and Researching Office, Plucked Instruments Teaching and Researching Offices, and Blowing and Percussion Instruments Teaching and Researching Office. It has three cultivating gradations of Bachelor, Master and Doctor.

Traditional Chinese Music Department has abundant teacher resources and precise teaching methods. The department gathered renowned teachers including Fengzhi Jiang, Dajun Yang, Jinglue Wu, Zicun Feng, Zheng Cao, Chunting Zhao, Zhao Chunfeng, Jiansheng Xiao, Fandi Wang, Zuhua Xiang, Mingyuan Liu, Dehai Liu, Ruli An, Wenguang Wu, Dacheng Qiu and Zhiliang Zhang, etc. At present, Traditional Chinese Music Department has 1 national renowned teacher, 1 young and mid-age specialist with special contribution to the country and 2 Beijing famous teachers as well as 10 teachers enjoy special allowances of the State Council. There are 30 professional teachers, 10 Professors, 9 Associate Professors, 9 lecturers and 2 teaching assistants. Two of them are doctoral advisors and 17 of them are master advisors. The team of Chinese traditional instruments teaching leaded by Professor Weiliang Zhang was awarded to be the National Excellent Team of Teaching and Beijing Excellent Team of Teaching. The book wrote by Dehai Liu named Classes of Pipa Performance was awarded to be the excellent course of Beijing.

At present, Traditional Chinese Music Department has 231 undergraduates and 84 graduates (16 of them are part-time graduate students). With many years’ efforts, students cultivated by Traditional Chinese Music Department have made lots of achievements in many competitions. Since 2002, 12 students had been awarded the gold prize of Splendor Award, 5 students had been awarded the silver prize of Wenhua Award, 5 students had been awarded the bronze prize of Wenhua Award. And 4 students had been awarded gold prize of the Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music, 2 students had been awarded silver prize of the Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music, and 7 students had been awarded bronze prize of the Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music. Since 2007, 4 students had been awarded the first prize of CCTV National Instrumental Music Video Competition, 5 students had been awarded the second prize of CCTV National Instrumental Music Video Competition and 7 students had been awarded the third prize of CCTV National Instrumental Music Video Competition. Now the Traditional Chines eMusic Department has Huaxia Orchestra of China Conservatory of Music and the Forbidden City Chamber Music Orchestra, which make great contributions to promotion and communication of traditional music.