On the afternoon of June 9^th, 2017, Prof. Anne Harley, the foreign expert of Hunan Women’s University (HWU) departed from Changsha after she completed her teaching and exchange at HWU and Hunan province.

Dec. 19^th, 2016 witnessed the commencement of HWU’s “Overseas Expert Program”, whose implementation was divided into two stages. The second stage was conducted from May 30 to June 9^th, 2017. During these two weeks, Prof. Harley taught 36 hours for the teaching staff and students of the Art Performance Department of HWU, mainly about the four steps of breath when singing, the pronunciation of Italian, and the singing ways of Le Nozze di Figaro composed by Mozart.

Besides, she lectured at HWU and Hunan First Normal University on "Re-aiming the canon: how performer-scholar-educators can recalibrate the canon to include marginalized musical repertoires". She analyzed seven factors that facilitated the canonization of repertoire, and four modern interventions to canonization, and put forward that self-distribution, self-publishing, kickstarter and crowd-sourcing are the future of music. Moreover, she introduced her program of compiling an annotated anthology for Western students and teachers of voice. She led an international group of scholars, composers and performers drawn from US, China, Malaysia and Singapore and asked her audience to contribute to the program.

In May 2016, the Education Department of Hunan Province unveiled the name list whose application of Hunan “Overseas Expert Program” among the Higher Institutions in the 2016-2017 academic year has been approved, and Hunan Women’s University has entered the name list. The overseas expert of HWU, Prof. Anne Harley who got her BA at Yale College and MA & DMA at Boston University, teaches at Scripps College, which is a member of the Claremont Consortium and a Top 3 women’s college and a top 24 liberal arts college in the United States. Prof. Harley specializes in performing music from challenging and ground-breaking contemporary composers as well as music from early oral and written traditions in Europe, America and Russia and appears in 17 internationally released CDs. She has also been committed to the disciplinary and intercultural comparative vocal music teaching and in charge of some related academic programs. Prof. Harley has also been frequently invited to teach vocal music in such higher institutions in China as Peking University, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Theatre Academy, Fudan University and Xiamen University.

The university leaders paid special attention to the program which was co-implemented by the International Affairs Office and the Art Performance Department in the 2016-2017 academic year. Till now, Prof. Harley has completed her teaching and exchange at HWU during her 33-day stay in Changsha. She has made her own contribution to the construction of the voice subject through the platform of “Overseas Expert Program”, which also offers opportunities to improve the art appreciation ability of the HWU residents, broaden their international view, and enhance the international academic research and exchange competence. (Written and translated by Long Min from the Foreign Affairs Office)