'Playing Chinese music brings me home'

Shi Yang Mortimer helped organise the second Cambridge Chinese Music and Culture Festival

The melodic tones of the guqin, the guzheng and the pipa will be heard as part of a festival celebrating traditional Chinese music.

Cambridge Chinese Music and Culture Festival organiser Shi Yang Mortimer said the sounds "bring me back home", despite her 30 years of living in the UK.

More than 20 performers from around the world will join local musicians for a series of concerts in the city, as well as dragon dances, calligraphy workshops and tea ceremonies.

The festival, which is in its second year, is run by the Cambridge Chinese Community Centre, the Cambridge Qin Society and the Cambridge University Chinese Orchestra Society, and runs until 22 August.

The opening ceremony and the first of three Soul of Chinese Music performances were held against the scenic backdrop of the 16th Century chapel at Trinity College on Saturday.

Sunday is the Chinese Music and Culture Day at Storey's Field Centre in Eddington, where there will be demonstrations of traditional Chinese painting, paper-cutting and tea ceremonies.

Shi Yang, vice chair of the Cambridge Chinese Community Centre, said the music was "like a bridge between East and West".

"It's not just Chinese instruments," she said. "There's also Western instruments."

She plays the guqin, or Chinese zither – a seven-stringed instrument played with both hands that dates back more than 3,000 years and produces a gentle, tranquil sound.

Katherine Cui, Yujuan Wang, Shi Yang Mortimer, Hongyu Cheng, Dong Sun and Chenyu Lin are all involved in the festival

"I'm passionate about it because it makes me feel I have a very close connection with China," Shi Yang said.

"Every time I play the guqin it brings me back home."

Dong Sun, who also helped organise the festival, said it took nearly a year to prepare.

She said visitors should "see, hear and feel the music", and added: "We want people to learn and share."