Fifty years ago, in 1961, the University of Michigan Symphony Band set out for a tour of the Soviet Union, following the New York Philharmonic in blazing a musical path behind the Iron Curtain. It was a cultural exchange designed to melt hearts in a Cold War, and it had a deep and lasting effect on participants.

Donald Sinta, a saxophonist with the band then and now a world-renowned player and distinguished member of the U-M music faculty, recently told U-M Symphony Band students how the tour shaped his life

“It was very profound and moving,” said Michael Haithcock, the band’s current director. “I became a more curious and open person,” Haithcock said Sinta reported to the group. “It changed my life. I can’t count the ways in which, in the last 50 years, I’ve been affected by it.”

Well, the 76 members of the Symphony Band (not all of them trombones, but all of them wind, brass and percussion players) are about to set out for a similar potentially life-changing experience.

May 7, after a May 5 Hill Auditorium farewell concert, the band sets out for a three-week tour of China. Going along are four graduate students in conducting; several U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance faculty members; and students from the U-M’s Screen Arts and Cultures Department who will make a documentary of the tour. Violinist Xiang Gao, a U-M alumnus, is the tour’s featured soloist.

The tour is sponsored by the U-M Provost's Office, the Office of the President, the U-M Confucius Institute and the Chinese Language Council International (Hanban).

With repertoire by U-M composers in the forefront (think William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Kristin Kuster and Bright Sheng), the band performs two programs and nine concerts at China’s finest halls (including Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts) and universities, with time to interact with Chinese counterparts in classes and informal exchanges. A grand finale concert May 29 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles caps the tour.

“China and Disney Hall are the new frontier,” said Haithcock, who originally suggested a 50th-anniversary reprise of the band’s 1961 Soviet Union tour, which culminated in a Carnegie Hall homecoming concert.

Ties with China have long been strong for the U-M. Senior Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs Lester Monts, who is also a musicologist, has been instrumental in implementing U-M President Mary Sue Coleman’s China Initiative. He pointed out in a recent phone conversation that the U-M’s performing-arts links with China are relatively new.

“Even though we’ve done quite a bit with the College of Engineering and the social science entities on campus, and even though we have a strong Chinese art collection, with all we’ve done we haven’t had this arts performance component,” he said.

That all changed when the U-M established a Confucius Institute here in 2009 — one of about 300 across the world. Its focus, uniquely, became Chinese arts and culture (as opposed to language instruction).

“Now we’re building up this arts connection,” said Monts, who played a major role in setting up the institute and tour.

So why send the Symphony Band as emissary and not, say, the U-M Symphony Orchestra?

“One of the strongest reasons, is what we do in a symphony band is uniquely American,” said Haithcock. “The wind band tradition in colleges and universities, which sprang up out of the marine band tradition at the turn of the century as colleges found their footing, is unique in the world.”

String and piano playing are very strong in China, but Chinese conservatories are just beginning to try to build a wind-band tradition, Haithcock said.

“Also, a lot of what we do here at U-M in the symphony band is very connected to emerging repertoire and Michigan composers,” he added. “You wouldn’t expect the orchestra to do four compositions by U-M composers; they’d do Mahler, or Shostakovich. So thinking of what we do as an institution, of China as a new frontier, and of new creations of art, this is a good fit.”

Organizers have been intent on making it a good experience for participants, too. Haithcock recalled that the band’s 1961 tour preparation was “one two-hour meeting before they left.”

This time around, participants have attended 10 Sunday afternoon cultural “labs” covering everything from language and food to customs and history. Participants have been blogging — go to music.umich.edu/china to read the blogs and everything else about the tour — and in general, using all the tools of the Internet age to prepare and share thoughts.

Irene Wu, a first-year master’s student in trombone performance, has been one of the “Chinese-backgrounded” students helping lead the labs. She has loved the experience, and she is looking forward to the trip.

“The most exciting thing about this tour is definitely travel in my home country with my friends in the band,” Wu wrote in an e-mail responding to questions. “Even though I'm from China, the country is so big that I have not visited three out of the six places we will be visiting. Being a host and a tourist at the same time is very exciting for me. I feel like I will gain the experience of being a tourist in these cities, as well as taking care of everyone else, showing them the great things about my country, and making sure they are having a good experience. As a musician, I'm really enthused about playing band music for Chinese people.”

Playing is at the core of the mission, so it’s not surprising to hear Wu’s thoughts echoed by other students.

“I think one of the greatest things about it is to have the opportunity to make really good music with really good players,” said bass saxophonist Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, a senior who is working on dual degrees in music and organizational studies. “And it has really given me the opportunity to understand people and know the people I’m playing with.”

Hulting-Cohen said the lab sessions “have been fantastic. It’s been very well thought out.”

Teaching the students and faculty some Chinese has produced its share of amusing moments, which Wu chronicles on her blog. “Ultimately, I doubt if they will need more than three sentences,” in China, she said, but “it’s been really fun.”

Haithcock has a solution to the language problem that takes into account the faux pas created by faulty intonation, which can totally change meaning: “I’m intending to speak very little,” he said.