Helen Rees has conducted extensive fieldwork on ritual music, music and tourism, and musicians' lives in southwest China and Shanghai. Her work on Chinese music has resulted in the book Echoes of History: Naxi Music in Modern China (Oxford University Press, 2000), the edited essay volume Lives in Chinese Music (University of Illinois Press, 2009), numerous articles in English- and Chinese-language journals, and several collaborative AV projects; she was also co-editor of Understanding Charles Seeger, Pioneer in American Musicology (University of Illinois Press, 1999). In addition, she is active as an interpreter, translator and presenter for Chinese musicians touring overseas, most recently for the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.