Overview
Biography
Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, the Hanns Eisler School of Music (Berlin) with Antje Weithaas and 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. Established at the highest level in China, Ning Feng performs regularly in his native country with both major international and local orchestras, in recital and with the Dragon Quartet which he founded in 2012. Now based in Berlin and enjoying a global career, Ning Feng has developed a reputation internationally as an artist of great lyricism and emotional transparency, displaying tremendous bravura and awe-inspiring technical accomplishment.
Highlights of Ning's 2014/15 season include debuts with the LA Philharmonic, Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Liszt and Berlin Konzerthaus Chamber orchestras, returns to the Auckland Philharmonia, Orchestra Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias, Macao Symphony and recitals and chamber performances in Seoul, Hong Kong and Brussels. He will also be soloist on two major tours, performing the Glazunov Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Petrenko in Dublin and across China, and later in the season the Beethoven Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic/Van Zweden across some of the major centres of Europe, including London, Zurich, Berlin and Vienna.
Recent successes for Ning have included performances of Bernstein's Serenade with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra/Ivan Fischer as part of the Konzerthaus's Bernstein celebrations, a tour of China with the Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer, performances with the Russian State Symphony, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg amongst others in halls such as Sydney Opera House, Moscow's Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center and Beijing's NCPA. In recital and chamber music he has played in prestigious series and festival such as Vancouver Recital Series, Hong Kong International Chamber, Prague Spring, Menuhin Festival Gstaad and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals. And with Igor Levit he has perform across Germany, including at the Ludwigsburg and Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festivals, and also at the Kissinger Summer Festival where he performs every year and where he will be an Artist-in-Residence in 2014.
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 Berilin, 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 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.'
Ning Feng plays a 1721 Stradivari violin, known as the 'MacMillan', on private loan, kindly arranged by Premiere Performances of Hong Kong.
