ABOUT Ning Feng

Winner, International Paganini Competition

Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, the Hanns Eisler School of Music (Berlin) with Antje Weithaas and the Royal Academy of Music (London) with Hu Kun, where he was the first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital. The recipient of prizes at the Hanover International, Queen Elisabeth and Yehudi Menuhin International violin competitions, Ning Feng was First Prize winner of the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition (New Zealand), and in 2006 won first prize in the International Paganini Competition.

Saturday, February 27 at 8 pm

Smithwick Theatre,

12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills, CA

TICKETS: $60, $45, $30

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE February 27 PROGRAM

** Ning Feng plays a 1721 Stradivari violin, known as the ‘MacMillan’, on private loan, kindly arranged by Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, and plays on strings by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.

Recent successes for Ning have included debuts with the LA Philharmonic debut as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations, with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester/Iván Fischer as part of the Konzerthaus’s Bernstein celebrations, concerts with Singapore and Macao Symphony orchestras, a tour of China with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko and a major European tour with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra/van Zweden which included performances in Berlin, London, Zurich and at the Musikverein, Vienna. In recital and chamber music he performs regularly with Igor Levit, amongst others, in many of the major festivals in Germany and elsewhere, and he performs every year at the Kissinger Sommer Festival where he was an Artist-in-Residence in 2014. 

Highlights of Ning’s 2015/16 season include debuts with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Grazinyte-Tyla and at the Schubertiade with Igor Levit, and return engagements with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester/ Ivan Fischer, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Weilerstein, Western Australian Symphony/Yamada and Auckland Philharmonia orchestras. Following his debut with the Liszt Chamber Orchestra last season, he returns to them for a play/direct programme at the Liszt Academy, Budapest , he joins the jury of Menuhin Competition in London and in the US he makes his debut at La Jolla Music Society, California.

Ning Feng records for Channel Classics in the Netherlands and his debut concerto disc, featuring Bruch Scottish Fantasy and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, was released in February 2014. Pizzicato magazine said, “He impresses not only with his technical skill but also with a warm, inspired and consistently full and lyric tone, able to express great emotion”, and Gramophone magazine wrote, “The fast, high passages sound wonderfully clear and pure, and the first movement [of the Tchaikovsky], in particular, abounds in balletic grace.” He has also recorded two discs of solo violin repertoire; one featuring sonatas by Bartók, Prokofiev and Hindemith, and the other virtuoso works by Paganini, Kreisler, Berio, Schnittke and others about which Audiophile Audition said, “none of these works is anything less than enthralling, and a few approach the incandescent. Milstein’s arrangement of the Paganiniana has never been bettered… this is an unqualified recommendation of a wonderful album that demonstrates the highest artistic and programming skills possible.”