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 When China invaded Tibet using military force in 1949, Tibetan culture was flourishing. China's Chairman Mao Tse Tung set out to bring Tibet into the Communist fold and thereafter destroyed thousands of monasteries, killed over a million Tibetans, and began repopulating Tibet with Han Chinese. As a highly developed esoteric and classical culture, more efficiently equipped with monastics and scholars than soldiers, the Tibetans were hard pressed to fight off Chinese aggressors. Their eventual defeat marked the end of Tibet's sovereignty as a nation, and it was renamed by China as the Tibet Autonomous Region.

In the 1960's, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution inside Tibet, culture was considered one of the "three poisons." Chinese Communist policy was to destroy what remained of Tibetan culture before the Chinese invasion, and to replace it with Communist propaganda. The function of music under Mao's rule was to align Tibetan mentality with the Communist ideology, and remove the traces within the Tibetan mind of their old way of life. Many Tibetans were killed or punished for practicing Tibetan music during this time.

During the chaos and the imminent threat, the current 14th Dalai Lama, fled to India in 1959, where he has been the head of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile ever since. Thousands of Tibetans have escaped Tibet and followed Him into exile. Those living inside Tibet today have no real leader inside their own country, and no real freedom; and the incredibly rich and historical culture of Tibet is disappearing before our very eyes. Now, with nomads being displaced by force into the cities, the completion of a railway between Tibet and China, and the subsequent influx of numerous Chinese settlers and shopkeepers, the tradition is disappearing ever more rapidly.

While it is no longer officially illegal to practice Tibetan culture, it is still frowned upon. It is rare to find Tibetan folk songs in the capital city of Lhasa, Tibet. The function they served in traditional Tibetan life, as it was before the Chinese invasion of 1949, has been uprooted. Young Tibetans now speak Chinese almost exclusively, and are attracted to modern music and culture.

Tibet still continues its predominantly peaceful struggle for cultural autonomy within the People's Republic of China, whose hatred for all reminders of Tibet has led them to refuse even to speak with the Dalai Lama himself on the issue. Despite the disappearance of Tibetan folk songs and traditional culture as a result of the Chinese occupation, most Tibetans still have a core belief in the value of Tibetan culture, and a willingness to fight for its survival. To this day, many Tibetans have been imprisoned, or even killed trying to obtain the right to artistic freedom inside Tibet. Tibet in Song is a testament to the courage of all those Tibetans who continue to fight for their culture.