The "China West" project takes its name for the "China West Suite" by Chen Yi, a former Peabody faculty composer, and is the brain child of classical guitarist Manuel Barrueco, who has teamed up with his proteges, the Baltimore based Beijing Guitar Duo (Meng Su & Yameng Wang) to offer a musical journey from China to the West.

Here the concept of the program is meant to include music from China and the rest of the Western World, as represented in the works of Chinese composers Tan Dun and Chen Yi, Brazilian composer Sergio Assad, Argentinian tango composer Piazzolla, and J. S. Bach, one of the most important composers of all times - arranged for three guitars by Manuel Barrueco.

"China West" project will be recorded on the Baltimore based Tonar Music record label for a world-wide CD release in the summer of 2014.

The program will also be performed in concert on April 25, 2015, at the Towson University's Center for the Arts, Harold J. Kaplan Concert Hall.

In the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 concert season, Manuel Barrueco will offer programs dedicated to the history between his native Cuba and its "madre patria" (motherland), Spain.

The program attempts to describe through music the connection between the two countries, from Cuba's "discovery" when King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabelle of Castilla, the Catholic Monarchs in Spain, and Christopher Columbus arrived on the island and when Cuba became a Spanish colony (with the music of Milan) and travel through the time to Cuba's independence from Spain in 1902 as its last colony, (with music of Cuban composer Nin-Culmell,  Ardevol, Orbon) and to the 20th century (Spanish composer Albeniz and his works Castilla, Aragon, and Cuba).