Twelve Girls Band
12 Girls Band is a Chinese all-female music group that uses traditional instruments to play both Chinese and Western songs. The group started on June 18, 2001, with twelve members chosen from over 4,000 hopefuls. Later they added a thirteenth member. All the musicians are classically trained and come from major Chinese conservatories and music schools.
The name and concept came from Chinese numerology and the idea of twelve hairpins symbolizing womanhood. They were inspired by Yue Fang ensembles from the Tang dynasty who performed in royal courts. The group began sharing modern arrangements on ancient instruments in China and Japan during the summer of 2003. In Japan, their early work quickly topped the charts, and their first Japanese album did very well.
Their North American debut, Eastern Energy, was released in August 2004 and featured Western covers like Coldplay’s Clocks and Enya’s Only Time, along with a large television advertising push. They released music and toured widely, including a US Miracles tour in 2004 and another in 2005. They won the Japan Gold Disc Award in 2004. In 2007 they performed at the Shanghai leg of Live Earth with Lila Downs, and Italian soprano Giorgia Fumanti joined them for part of their North American tour that year. In 2017 they played in Japan, with tickets selling out in eight minutes.
Their instruments include erhu, pipa, guzheng, yangqin, dizi, and xiao, with occasional use of duxianqin and hulusi. Many CDs were released in various regions, often in slightly different versions to suit different markets.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:03 (CET).