Editor’s Note: The following piece is part of a series of short stories profiling many of the performers in the 65th National Folk Festival Aug. 22-24 in Bangor.

The musical ensemble of Yang Wei and Betty Xiang create harmonious tones from ancient Chinese instruments the couple play together.

Yang strums a pear-shaped instrument called the pipa, a fretted lute, and Xiang draws her bow across an erhu or ancient Chinese fiddle. The erhu can also be plucked with fingers or drummed and the bow is intertwined between the strings.

“The history is related to the Silk Road in the northwest part of China,” said Yang. “People exchanged not only the materials but also their cultures and musical instruments.”

The erhu, which started as a snakeskin drum and became a fiddle, is more than 1,000 years old and the pipa has a 2,00-year history and is a distant relative of the guitar.

Yang said the instruments together sound like conversation, especially the erhu that tries to imitate the human voice.

“It’s kind of like new human dialogue to us,” he said. “In China, same words have different tones so in our music you can hear the different Chinese dialogues.”

The duo, who immigrated to the United States seven years ago, has achieved recent fame with their rendition of the national anthem, which will be performed at the National Folk Festival in Bangor.

“People will go crazy,” Yang said. “They love it.”

The twosome, from Chicago, will play a variety of music but will concentrate on traditional Chinese harmonies and classical music.

Yang began to play Chinese music at age 6 and Xiang was trained by her late father, Zuying Xiang, a renowned erhu soloist.

“We really believe music is the universal language,” Yang said. “It’s very fun to do this.”

– By Nok-Noi Hauger of the NEWS Staff

Yang Wei and Betty Xiang perform at 4:45 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, and at 2:45 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, on the Two Rivers Stage.