When listening to music of other cultures, should one listen with unfiltered ears or the knowledge of Western traditions?

I was thinking just that as I prepared to journey to Sugar Land recently to take in the sights and sounds of a country a hemisphere away, albeit essential in defining the Bayou City's ethos. Hosted at Christ United Methodist Church by the Houston Chinese Traditional Music Group in collaboration with the Changlu Wu School of Music, I thought myself cultured enough and chic enough — because I reside in the hipstrict — to discover what the Year of the Dragon would bring musically.

As the only legendary creature in the Chinese zodiac, the dragon symbolizes power, strength, wealth and good luck. And who couldn't use a dash of that?

It was tempting to make associations with instruments of European origins. The erhu is like a fiddle, a pipa resembles a lute, dizis are transverse flutes, a zheng is a plucked zither.

Occupying gray matter with such similes could distract from the aesthetic experience at hand. But turning off all my intellectual baggage was unconceivable — after all, it was Houston Grand Opera's Courtside that brought Chinese lore onto a conventional local stage.

Yes, there's room for both.

It's sad that there's such a territorial divide of all things inside and outside the loop. Though we tout Houston's diversity as a point of pride, I wonder how many residents enjoy the greater area to its fullest, perhaps in fear of feeling like an émigré. With the exception of a few, most in the audience were Chinese and it was obvious they were connecting with soulful memories, singing and swaying along to their favorite tunes.

I was glad I made the drive, especially when it became evident this was far from an adorable community musicale, a kind of talent show for citizen engagement.

This was a virtuosic display of bad ass musicians pouring their blood, sweat and tears via traditional Chinese instruments.

Music making wasn't just a hobby. This was serious business.

The performance

As concert hostess and Houston Chronicle reporter Yang Wang put it, by Western standards, all instruments of Chinese origin are organic. Made from bamboo, animal skins and silks, they evoke the spirit of nature and the psyche of Chinese folklore. The ambiance whisked away listeners to a mystical land of bucolic beauty amid rich National narratives of yesteryear and today, and scenes of rural festivals.

And I didn't need to speak the language nor be familiar with the tales to follow along. I understand music, and that was enough.

Opening with a trio of Cantonese Folk tunes, there was no limit to what the ensemble did with pentatonic sonorities. Enlivened by pesante syncopations and swooping gestures, the artists put as much emphasis on the notes as the connection between the notes.

When Xin Zhang's gaohu's shined, the tunes morphed into a raucous Scottish gig or robust Southern square dance. The ensemble benefited from his professional experience as a Chinese army musician, leading from the concertmaster chair with joyful gusto.

Michelle Zhang may have appeared to be a fragile 10-year-old child, but as she interpreted the Japanese traditional Sakura on zheng, timidness left the building in favor of aesthetic maturity and grace through each of the themes' complex variations.

The powerful voice of Xiaomei Yu was prime for chansons from The Red Lantern, a traditional Peking opera. The soprano imbued the lyrics with appropriate theatricality to deliver an emotionally heroic rendition with luxurious and piercing vocal color. Even in recitatives, there was a sophisticated understanding of timing, repose and forward motion.

Such intensity was needed to convey the revolutionary story of struggle through the Japanese occupation of 1939.

It's fitting that pipa whiz Zhuxi Wang chose a work that paid homage to the Tang Dynasty. Much of the early literary tradition from that era set the instrument at the center of anecdotes and myths, describing its sound as refined and delicate. And that's one way to describe Zhixi Wang take on Emotional Expression: Inspired by feeling after reading the poem "Pipa" from the Tang Dynasty.

But such finesse was just the beginning.

Moving away from porcelain-like clarity into passionate displays of darker emotions — anger, sorrow and grief — the pipa was given a voice that transcended its cultural context.

Spring Tide could have been a salon-type conservatory flute piece from the Paris school, the type that shows off full aesthetic range and tessitura while testing the player's chops. The work was no match for Dizi player Yixui Yan's prowess — soaring through technical passages with ease yet always at the service of musicality — awakening a hunting and fishing tableau from the Hezhe minority of Northern China.

And that was just the first half.

Amid sounds of the hulusi, suona, shogugu and jinghu, everything on the program was a banquet for the ears, each piece a gem dazzling with a colorful prism whose charm and splendor everyone could appreciate, especially in the encore, Deep in the Heart of Texas.