Yang Xuefei Photo: Courtesy of Universal Music Group

Dressed in black and wearing make-up, Yang Xuefei looks no different than other fashionable and straight forward girls with a typical Beijing accent. If it weren't for her undecorated long nails on her right hand, it would be easy to forget that this beautiful and joyful lady is a classical guitar pioneer - the first person in China to earn a bachelor degree in classical guitar.

In June Yang will release her new album Heartstrings, which will contain 19 solos she selected.

"I've played some of these songs as encores at concerts. They are light and short, and all of them have touched my heartstrings. Which is why I named this album Heartstrings," said Yang, answering all the questions I asked with a quick and pleasant tone of voice.

Compared to her previous albums, Yang felt that the most different part of making an album this time was her role as music producer, which came with more work and responsibilities but also more creative freedom. Among the 19 new songs, she chose some original classic guitar songs and some adaptations from Chinese and Western classical music.

While the 38-year-old guitarist is mostly active among Western concert halls, she hopes that signing with Universal Music Group will bring her more opportunities at home.

A musical pioneer

When Yang was 7 years old, she attended the music study groups that were held at her primary school. Due to the influence of Russian music in China at the time, the most popular musical instrument among students was the accordion. However, since too many people were in the accordion group and the instrument felt too heavy for the young Yang, she chose the guitar group instead - a random choice that impacted the rest of her life.

"It was not me choosing the guitar, it was the guitar that found me," Yang has been quoted as saying in several interviews with different media outlets.

She soon became fascinated by the stringed instrument and her first performances with the guitar were with the school chorus. At the age of 10, she became a student of well-known guitarist Chen Zhi and started to play classic guitar at some international musical festivals. Several foreign professional classic guitarists praised Yang after watching the little girl's performance, which inspired her to become a professional classic guitarist just like them.

Giving up an opportunity to enter one of the best middle schools in Beijing, Yang started along the lonely path of being an exception at the middle school belonging to the Central Conservatory of Music. With most of her classmates studying musical instruments like the piano or violin, people sometimes were confused about whether her instrument had a place at concert halls.

"I started to realize my strong feelings towards the guitar after experiencing all the difficulties and pressures from people around me. People don't really treat it as a serious musical instrument and I was the only one majoring in guitar," said Yang.

Yang continued on this lonely road even through college life at the Central Conservatory of Music. The only student majoring in guitar, she felt like an outside among the students. Even her guitar teacher Chen, according to a report published in the Shenzhen Daily, was studying mathematics and chemistry.

"I had no companions and no Chinese role models at the time. I started to get very confused about my own life: how to improve my professional skills and what I could do after my graduation," Yang told the Global Times. Unlike some other stringed instruments players, guitarists seem to have no position in a traditional orchestra. Yang then decided to study abroad and look for musical circles that knew her instrument better. She became the first Chinese student to be awarded a full postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London and gained a Fellowship there in 2012 in recognition of her distinguished career.

Looking for more

"Everyone walks a difficult road, but some people prefer to hide the more miserable parts from the public," Yang said, talking about her past. "People's personalities mature in their 30s and it reflects in their music. I've started to make my own sound when it comes to guitar."

In Yang's spare time, she likes to travel around with her guitar. She shared experiences where she spent hours just playing guitar by the seaside until she could no longer bear the bites of mosquitoes. "You know, this is a very unique experience for a guitarist. Many musical instruments play with companion instruments, and even though pianists can play alone, they can't drag their piano with them everywhere. I, on the other hand, don't need a companion for my instrument, and I can bring it with me everywhere."

Yang did eventually find a place for herself in the West, but she still wanted more. She began adapting Chinese traditional music into guitar versions and introducing them to Western audiences, but also began working on her own original music.

"I don't think playing adapted music from other musical instruments is a very long-lasting path for a classic guitarist. At least half of what we do should be original songs."

That is one of the reasons that Yang is holding a composing competition during the guitar musical festival in Changsha, Hunan Province this July. For the first time ever, she will be the artistic director of the festival.

Yang admitted that this is also a challenge for her: "I need to figure out how to invite musicians, how to handle the festival's artistic direction and how to arrange the concerts and competitions."

"I hope more people will compose classic guitar music, not for me, but for this musical instrument. We might find another excellent work just like the Concierto de Aranjuez among the 1,000 new pieces at the festival, who knows?"