Betti Xiang erhu
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| Erhu soloist Betti Xiang joins the orchestra in "The Butterfly Lovers" Concerto inspired by China’s popular love story. This "Chinese Romeo and Juliet" is about two lovers unable to marry, who die of heartbreak and turn into butterflies, united in death. David Alan Miller |
....As you go farther back in history, the techniques become closer to what Kayhan Kalhor might be playing on the kemanchen or Betti Xiang might be playing on the erhu. And so what that does give me many more options of how to play the half in the Sarabande,...
Celloist, Yo-Yo Ma
The Chicago Tribune
By John von Rhein
The Chinese erhu virtuosa Betti Xiang was the astonishing soloist. She "sang" the female half of the doomed couple with an agility, subtlety and lyrical grace any opera singer would envy. The erhu is played like a cello, but in Xiang's sensitive hands,it could soar with a violin's range and color, or skitter like a stone thrown across a rushing stream.
Chicago Sun-Times
CSO weaves a tapestry of sounds - concert review CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Pritzker Pavilion
By Marta Tonegutti
A radiant Xiang took center stage for "The Butterfly Lovers," claiming for her erhu the part originally composed for violin in imitation of the traditional Chinese fiddle. She mesmerized the audience as much with her virtuoso performance as with the instrument's plaintive voice-like quality, familiar to us through chinese opera and now through cinema. A demanding cadenza for the solo erhu was beautifully executed, as were the melancholy exchanges between erhu and first cello, with the two instruments giving voice to the tale's unhappy lovers.
Xiang's solo on erhu enchanting, virtuosic
By Tom Strini, Journal Sentinel Music Critic
Xiang peppered her dazzling solo with all manner of left-hand pitch inflections, harmonics and tone colors, but the essential beauty of the instrument lies in the way notes connect within melodies. Something about it seems to promote a fluid legato that only the very best singers achieve.
Anchorage Daily News (AK)
By Anne Herman, Daily News Music Viewer
The program's loveliest work was the ancient "Melody of the River," arranged here for erhu and piano. Xiang entered with palpably elegant, poignant sounds, filling the theater with a restrained pain that made one almost weep to hear it.
