''There was a sense of camaraderie, though we could not speak a word,'' Latham, the director of this year's Canberra International Music Festival, says.

''Music, being the universal language, can speak to the heart where language fails.

''If you're just talking to people on a human level and want to get beyond that sense of otherness, so you can speak as if we're all people, music is a very effective way to do that.

''I chose most of the music [for the festival] because it is utterly, heart-meltingly beautiful and can speak to the broadest audience.''

The 18th annual festival, a multi-faceted musical feast that will leave those starved for culture filled to the brim, runs from May 11 to 20. It is pitched as exceptional music performed in Canberra's famous architectural spaces, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Australia, High Court of Australia, Australian War Memorial and Albert Hall. There are to be more than 30 concerts of classical, contemporary and jazz music, featuring national and international artists, including the Wallfisch Band, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, the New Zealand String Quartet, the Song Company, Osmosis and composer-in-residence Peteris Vasks.

Latham wanted the focus of the festival to be on how Canberra influences the world, in particular, its relationship with Turkey.

''There's an East-meets-West flavour the whole way through the festival,'' he says.

''It's about how cultures engage, how they blend, how they borrow from and influence each other. It's focused on cultural diplomacy.''

Taking advantage of the National Museum of Australia's Travelling the Silk Road exhibition, the festival will feature Music from the Silk Road.

This concert is described as a circle that starts with the Italian Teodorico Pedrini taking Italian music to China. It then progresses to Spanish Jewish Sephardic music, this being the music of the initial traders on the Silk Road, and moves onto the Ottoman Empire and Turkish and Persian music. Uzbecki music by Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky is followed by Indian music with Bobby Singh and friends and then Shohrat Turzun, performing Uyghur music. The concert ends with various Chinese works back in the Forbidden City where the circle began. Latham explains, ''It is about learning to play in the various dialects of this international language that music represents and showing how the music changes as it slowly travels from West to East.''

One of the performers will be Wang Zheng Ting, a sheng player described as one of Australia's finest. The sheng is an ancient Chinese mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes. Ting, who has a doctorate in Chinese music, is an enthusiast when it comes to this instrument, which is one of the oldest in China. He says the 36-pipe shengs are more modern than the 26-pipe versions, which are traditional.

''It has more than 3500 years of history,'' he says. ''In Australia, not many people play it.'' He appreciates the sheng because it can play harmonies, rather than just single notes, making it more diverse in sound. Ting compares it to the bagpipes, the accordion and the church organ.

In the concert, he will play Gold Phoenix and Melody of Shanxi Opera; both pieces of music are ancient.

Ting hopes his listeners will get a taste of how traditional Chinese music sounds and an understanding of the versatility of his instrument.

''It can be dramatic or very soft and very diverse regarding harmony,'' he says.

Also at the Music from the Silk Road concert will be baroque flautist Kate Clark, performing Pedrini's Sonata for violin and continuo.

Playing Pedrini is a new experience for Clark, who admires the man who in turn was an admirer of violinist and baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli. Pedrini, therefore, has a Corellian style, albeit less virtuosic sounding to Clark's ear.

''[Pedrini plays] beautiful, simple, melodious and uncomplicated harmonies,'' Clark, who is based in Amsterdam, says.

She has spent her life playing music from long ago.

Asked why 18th-century music survives and is still loved, she explains it has basic qualities that make it pleasing.

''People just love to hear beautiful tunes,'' she says. ''It's full of beautiful melodies and marked by the use of many patterns, repetitions, symmetry.

''It's very easy to perceive its form. The combination of clear forms and sweet harmonies is an addictive combination.''

Clark says the harmonies of 18th-century music can still be heard in popular music, such as that by The Beatles and Paul Simon. The song structure does not die.

She picked up the baroque flute, a wooden flute with no keys, when she was a student at Sydney University. ''I found my great love,'' she says. ''It was the sound, mostly. There's a very different sound in a wooden flute as opposed to a metal one. It's warm, it's mellow, it is responsive to the player.''

She aims to stir the feelings of her listeners.

''I'm hoping they will be touched, that their emotions will be awoken, that there will be a feast of different emotions while listening to the piece.

''Baroque music typically touches a range of emotions: a melancholy or nostalgia and occasionally it's sorrowful. It often expresses a mixture of sweetness and sorrow. On the other hand it can be joyful, lighthearted and playful.

''Some pieces have a kind of innocence, are almost pastoral in their expression. You can see the fields, birds and rivers.''

Latham says he wanted the concerts of the festival to be played in special spaces because it was these spaces that were ''like a mega instrument''.

''You're inside the instrument and its walls. I've always been fascinated by that and I love beautiful-sounding spaces,'' he says.

''There's a relationship between good proportions that please the eye and good proportions that please the ear.''

He hopes those who attend the festival find themselves refreshed and renewed. This is based on his belief that music is physically beneficial to the body.

''All those sound-waves travelling through - it's like the most ethereal massage.''

The Canberra International Music Festival is on from May 11 to 20. Tickets can be bought through Canberra Ticketing on 6275 2700. Individual concerts cost $35-$65. A weekend pass good for eight concerts costs $290. Concessions can be had for Pro Musica members, students, pensioners, seniors, and friends or members of national institutions. For full event listing and details, see cicmf.org.