Nancy Yunhwa Rao is Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. Rao is the author of Chinatown Opera Theater in North America (2017), recognized by three book awards from the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and Association of Asian American Studies. Chinese translation of the book was published by Guangxi Normal University Press and Shanghai Conservatory Press in 2021. Her scholarship offers innovative analytical approaches to cross-cultural music and enrich public discussions about cultural encounters in music. Recent essays include Sino-Soundscape and Sinophone communities, Inter-Asia imaginings and sensibilities, and materiality in the sonic imagery of Chinese contemporary music. Her new book, Inside Chinese Theater: Community and Artistry in 19th-century California and Beyond, is forthcoming at Illinois University Press. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Rao serves as the editor-in-chief of American Music.

Hui Yu is a Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of the Chinese Ministry of Education at Nanjing Normal University. Dr. Yu began his academic career as a tenured faculty member at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in the early 1990s. After earning his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, he went on to serve as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Shenyang Normal University, Ningbo University, and Yunnan University. His extensive body of scholarly work, covering ethnomusicology, digital musicology, traditional Chinese music practices, and ancient Chinese music theories, have been published in Chinese, English, and Russian by international academic journals and publishers including Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Moscow State University Press, and Zhejiang University Press. Dr. Yu is also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the chief editor of the international journal Asian Musicology.