Strings that sing Mongolian music's magical melodies

Xiangdan staged auditions to find Inner Mongolia's most talented young morin khuur players, whom she brought to the national capital for training under veteran instrumentalists and choreographers for the group's first two years in Songzhuang village on Beijing's outskirts.

Sun Yueting, whose stage name is Xiaogege, recalls: "We didn't just learn morin khuur but also underwent physical training because performing while moving around requires strength and endurance."

Members sling the instruments from their belts onstage.

Sun, who grew up in Inner Mongolia's Tongliao city, learned the erhu (two-stringed fiddle) from her grandfather from a very early age and started playing the morin khuur at a local art school from the age of 12.

She joined the ensemble at 16 after she saw it on TV. She was dazzled by its music and stage presence.

"The ensemble had about 10 students taking classes eight hours a day," the 25-year-old recalls.

Xiangdan brought several members to Mongolia to study khoomei, or throat-singing, about eight years ago. She learned kargyraa, a deeper-sounding khoomei style, which she performed with the ensemble.

Speaking of bassy sounds, Xiangdan also developed a large morin khuur. The big instrument is like the double bass in a Western symphony orchestra. The 1.6-meter instrument's two strings are formed by about 600 intertwined smaller strings.

The ensemble has enjoyed greater fame since it won the first CCTV National Chinese Instrumental Competition's Golden Award in 2007.

It performed at the Vienna Musikverein in 2009, the same year the group played at the Great Hall of the People for Barack Obama during his first official visit to China.

The group played for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, one of the country's most viewed TV events, the following year. It toured the United States, Russia, Japan and Malaysia in 2012.

Dongfang Shenjun will create two short videos this summer. One will chronicle the ensemble's history. The other will elucidate ethnic Mongolians' relationship with horses.

"My vision is for youth from different cultures to perform morin khuur together in the ensemble," says Xiangdan.

Yuan Hui contributed to the story.