The music video "Vó Ngựa Trên Mây" (Horse Hooves on the Clouds), along with the official soundtrack, was released on various music platforms on May 18, 2026, which is also the birthday of Meritorious Artist Dương Thuỳ Anh. For her, this is not just a performance music video, but a journey of gathering the things she loves most after more than 40 years of living with the two-stringed fiddle: her love for traditional Vietnamese music, the beauty of Vietnamese nature, and the cultural values ​​that need to be preserved.

Under the direction of Hai Le Cao, "Horse Hooves on the Clouds" doesn't feel like a tourism promotional music video or an elaborately staged musical production showcasing visuals. Instead, it resembles an encounter between the female artist and the land that truly moves her, where the sound of the two-stringed fiddle doesn't stand alone, but blends with the mountain winds, the clouds, and the rocky roads of Ha Giang.

The reason she chose Ha Giang stems from the conception process of this special project. Musician Trong Quang sat down with her to understand each function and technique that the fingers could perform on the two-stringed fiddle before writing each note for the piece. The arrangement, created by musician Luu Quang Minh, delivers a melody that is both powerful and free-spirited, yet profound and rich in narrative, transporting listeners to a space where traditional values ​​intersect with contemporary expression.

That cinematic musical arrangement further inspired Duong Thuy Anh to create a music video worthy of her, featuring the image of a horse that she loves: strong, fierce, and wild.

Therefore, it could only be Ha Giang. “For me, Ha Giang is something truly magnificent. I’ve been fortunate enough to tour many countries around the world, visiting famous tourist destinations like Switzerland with its very poetic beauty. But they still don’t give me the overwhelming sense of grandeur that Ha Giang does. And from that, I’ve harbored the desire to introduce the scenery here not only to domestic audiences, but also to international audiences, with the beautiful Vietnamese nature blended with the sounds of traditional instruments creating a very unique emotional combination,” the erhu artist shared.

The journey to create the more than 5-minute-long music video "Horse Hooves on the Clouds" involved the entire crew traveling through Ha Giang from early morning until late at night, constantly moving on winding mountain passes that even experienced travelers would be wary of.

The real challenge lay in the segments filmed in treacherous terrain and harsh weather conditions; even a small slip could lead to danger. Poetic scenes, such as standing on a precarious cliff overlooking the mountains to play the violin, or the horseback riding segment through the Ma Pi Leng Pass, were, in fact, moments that made the entire crew hold their breath.

Initially, Duong Thuy Anh only intended to stand next to the horse to film a few scenes, but the horse's owner encouraged her to try riding it. Unexpectedly, the artist was able to sit on the horse's back while playing the two-stringed fiddle amidst the rocky mountains. Her companion at the time, People's Artist and Diva Thanh Lam, even broke down in tears of emotion witnessing her friend overcome her fear to give the audience a truly unique experience.

Meritorious Artist Duong Thuy Anh began learning the two-stringed fiddle (dan nhi) at the age of six under the guidance of her father, artist Duong Chuong, a musician in the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet Theatre. “The dan nhi is different from all other musical instruments,” she recalls. “The bow is clamped between the two strings and cannot be separated. To produce a sound, you have to press the strings correctly and with enough force, and it was very difficult for my tiny fingers to do that, so I cried a lot in the beginning.”

But over time, the simple two-stringed fiddle gradually captivated Thuy Anh, who willingly pursued it with passion, not simply as an instrument to play, but as a means of livelihood, an indispensable part of her life. The little girl who once cried while practicing is now an Meritorious Artist, a lecturer in the Traditional Musical Instruments Department at the Hanoi College of Arts, and a member of the band Co La, which has toured internationally.

Her two greatest musical mentors, her father and lecturer Le Quang Dat, are no longer with us, but their legacy lives on in every note she plays, as well as in the passion for traditional Vietnamese music she imparts to her students.

"For traditional Vietnamese music to survive, it cannot simply remain unchanged," shared Meritorious Artist Duong Thuy Anh. "But modernization does not mean losing its identity."

And that has been the guiding philosophy throughout her artistic journey over the past 40 years. For this female artist, the simple two-stringed fiddle can completely transcend traditional performance spaces to blend into jazz, rock, pop, or electronic music, as long as the artist preserves the unique "soul" of the traditional instrument through the characteristic techniques of vibrato, trills, and emphasis of the fiddle.

In "Horses on the Clouds," listeners will encounter many characteristic performance techniques of the erhu, such as rapid bow movements, prolonged vibrating sounds, and flexible handling of pitch... The sound of the erhu is not just sound, but also becomes the emotion, image, and breath of the entire work.

"The sound of the erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle) may only appear for a short time, but if placed in the right context, the audience will remember it forever," is her conclusion after experiencing many stages both domestically and internationally.

Meritorious Artist Thùy Anh also pondered how to make young people feel closer to sounds that were once considered too academic or outdated: "Young people today are very talented, they grasp many things very quickly. What we need to do is to instill passion, because only passion can lead to the end."

It is thanks to this passion that an artist like her, who has won numerous awards, continues to reinvent herself with challenging personal projects such as the solo performance of the two-stringed fiddle "Oh, the Crane" (2007), "Silence" and the music video "Crossing the Forest" (2023), and most recently "Horse Hooves on the Clouds". The female artist also revealed that she already has plans for her next projects, regardless of how successful this music video is.

"This time we're going to the forest and the mountains," she laughed. "And next time, maybe we'll go to the beach."