For Your
GRAMMY® Consideration
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album
Bei Bei – Two Moons
Best Global Music Performance
Gaoshan Electronica
Two Moons is a contemporary instrumental album that reimagines the guzheng and guqin as expressive contemporary voices. Through cinematic composition, innovative arrangements, and forward-thinking production, the album blends ancient Chinese strings with electronic textures, improvisation, and immersive soundscapes to create a bold and distinctive musical language. Expanding the expressive possibilities of these timeless instruments, Two Moons presents them not as artifacts of tradition, but as living voices in contemporary music.
Gaoshan Electronica (Track No. 2 on the Two Moons album) draws inspiration from the music and spirit of China’s high-mountain ethnic minority cultures, reimagined through contemporary electronic dance production. Led by Bei Bei’s guzheng and featuring sheng virtuoso Shu Zhiming, the track brings traditional Chinese instrumental voices into a vibrant, modern soundscape—celebrating cultural roots while exploring new possibilities in global music.
Listening Links
- Album Title: Two Moons
- Artist: Bei Bei
- Release Date: February 20, 2026
- Record Label: Bei Bei Time Productions
- Producer: Paul Simon Elliott, Beibei Monter
- Co-Producer: Antaeus
- Composers: Beibei Monter, Paul Simon Elliott
- Performers: Bei Bei (guzheng, guqin, vocal), Paul Elliott (electronic music programming), Ron Korb (dizi), Yang Liu (erhu), Shu Zhiming (Sheng), Bin Ma (San Xian), Jon Monter (zhong ruan)
- Recording and Mixing: Beibei Monter, Paul Elliott
- Mastering: Eleven Mastering
- Album artwork: Paul Elliott (design), Beibei Monter (photo & design), David Xiong (photo), Feng Weigong (Chinese Calligraphy)
- Genre: Contemporary Instrumental
My Journey to Two Moons:
More than 20 years ago, as a classically trained guzheng musician, I heard Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue and thought, “One day, I want to play music like this.”
I had no idea how.
My journey took me from street performing in Pasadena, to experimenting with contemporary music, to recording for Hollywood films—and eventually creating Two Moons, a contemporary instrumental album centered around the guzheng and guqin—two ancient Chinese string instruments.
Working with producer Paul Elliott, we brought these instruments into electronic music and atmospheric soundscapes.
The title came from seeing two moons one night—the moon in the sky and its reflection in my window.
They became a symbol of duality: tradition and innovation, East and West, and the physical and spiritual selves.
Throughout the album, these different worlds coexist.
Upcoming Live Shows
Album Reviews
Bei Bei’s “Two Moons” illuminates lunar elegance with modern depth – Earmilk
The impeccable zither playing is blended with cinematic soundscapes, synth basslines and mid-tempo beats, evoking night-time cityscapes and mid-autumn twilight. – Songlines
This completely stands as a rare fusion of past and present done with humility and vision. It’s not just a celebration of heritage or innovation, but proof that when treated with care, both can coexist beautifully. Without a doubt it’ll be one of the more unique records you’ve heard in a while… – WeWriteAboutMusic
Thoroughly successful in its bridging of classical elements with modern electronic savvy, Two Moons is a lovely listening experience from Bei Bei. – ObsureSound
The Silver Medal at the Global Music Awards was, if anything, modest recognition. *Two Moons* is one of the more quietly essential records of recent vintage — the kind of album that takes several listens to fully reveal itself, and repays that patience handsomely. – IndieDockMusicBlogUK
Two Moons: A calm yet ahead of, the, time fusion of music that allows tradition to be the leading of the future. – ProjectTimbre
Awards
Two Moons received the Silver Medal for World Fusion Album at the Global Music Awards in 2025
Two Moons title track won Hollywood Independent Music Awards (HIMA) – New Age/Ambient music Award in 2026
Two Moons won two awards in the Asian Jazz/Crossover and Contemporary Instrumental categories at the 2026 InterContinental Music Awards on in 2026.
About the Album
At once intimate and expansive, Two Moons is a contemporary instrumental album that reimagines the 2,500-year-old traditions of the Chinese guzheng and guqin within a cinematic, ambient-fusion sound world. Across seven immersive instrumental compositions, the luminous voices of these ancient strings take center stage, intertwining with contemporary electronic sound design, atmospheric synthesis, analog textures, and modern rhythmic undercurrents. The result is a distinctly contemporary instrumental expression—rooted in Chinese musical heritage yet shaped by modern production, improvisation, and cross-genre exploration—creating a sound world that feels ancient, modern, and timeless all at once.
Based in Los Angeles, Bei Bei brings her signature artistry—renowned for its emotional depth, technical mastery, and cross-cultural fluency—into dialogue with Paul Elliott’s meticulously sculpted electronic compositions. Rather than leaning toward the polished sheen of mainstream electronic production, Two Moons embraces a warmer, more tactile sonic language: rounded edges, tape saturation, analog dustiness, and a distinctly human feel. The result is a form of retro-futurism—nostalgic yet forward-looking—that stands apart from contemporary high-gloss, hi-fi electronic music.
From the outset, Bei Bei and Elliott shared a mutual fascination with lo-fi and analog-leaning electronic music—sounds that feel lived-in, imperfect, and emotionally resonant. That shared aesthetic became the foundation of the album. Elliott committed fully to an analog workflow, using vintage synthesizers and drum machines synced and programmed as living systems, often overdubbing and triggering sounds and effects live as sequences were recorded. Delays and reverbs were printed in real time, allowing the music to evolve organically in the moment rather than being endlessly refined after the fact.
“This way of working might feel like a compromise to contemporary engineers”, Elliott explains, “but for me it was incredibly freeing. It’s how these machines were meant to be used—and it allowed the music to breathe”.
A central challenge—and creative triumph—of Two Moons lies in how the traditional instruments are treated within this electronic framework. The guzheng, in particular, occupies a wide frequency range, and the instinct in a Western production context might be to reshape or restrain its sound. Elliott chose the opposite approach.
“Changing the character of the guzheng to make it more ‘Western-friendly’ would have diluted its emotion”, say Bei Bei and Paul. “Instead, we wove the electronic elements around the instrument—and sometimes let the instrument shape the electronics”.
That philosophy allowed Bei Bei’s playing to remain fully intact—expressive, dynamic, and deeply personal—while merging seamlessly with the analog electronic environment. The album becomes not a hybrid of competing elements, but a unified sonic ecosystem where tradition and technology enhance one another.
About Bei Bei (Beibei Monter, 荷蓓蓓)
Based in Los Angeles, Bei Bei is one of the world’s leading guzheng performers — celebrated for her innovative artistry that bridges the ancient and the contemporary. Her evocative playing can be heard on major film and game soundtracks, including Disney’s Mulan, DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 4, League of Legends, and Civilization VII, for which she also served as Chinese Music Consultant. She has collaborated with global icons such as Christina Aguilera, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial with Will Smith, and performed as a soloist several times with the Pacific Symphony.
Since her 2006 debut, she has released multiple critically acclaimed original albums — Into the Wind (Ubiquity Records), Heart of China (Universal Music), Year of the Funky (Légère Recordings), and Rhythm of China (Hatch for Sleep). Her work has also been featured in the American college textbook World Music: Tradition and Innovation.
Through her collaborations with renowned international artists including Fingazz and Shawn Lee (with whom her music appears in the acclaimed game Sleeping Dogs), Bei Bei continues to expand the global reach of traditional Chinese instruments — transforming them into vehicles for universal emotion and modern expression.