Though the Buddha himself allegedly shunned music—warning that one may become attached to the sound rather than the teachings, and that it may annoy the landlord—his followers have wisely shrugged off that injunction. In this online conference of the US-China Music Institute at Bard, teachers will include composer Tan Dun, dean of Bard’s conservatory, while music makers will range from monks in China and Tibet to pipa virtuoso Wu Man, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and Bhutan’s Phub Zam, whose voice floats like a feather on a Himalayan breeze. —E.E.