Ning Feng - NOSPR

Ning Feng is recognised internationally as an artist of great lyricism, innate musicality and stunning virtuosity. He performs across the globe with major orchestras and conductors, and in recital and chamber concerts in some of the most important international series and festivals. The Washington Post has described him as “a wonderful player with a creamy, easy tone and an emotional honesty” and BBC Music Magazine said of a recent recording: “His silvery tonal purity, immaculate intonation and gently beguiling musicality have a way of making most other players sound decidedly effortful by comparison.”

Ning Feng has toured Europe, Asia and Australia with van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and has been the soloist on tours of China with many orchestras including the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer, with whom he has performed several times in Budapest, with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and Lawrence Foster, and with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he performs regularly. He has played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra amongst others and in 2022/2023 will make his debut with the New York Philharmonic. Conductors with whom he has worked include Gianandrea Noseda, Marin Alsop, Yu Long, Tugan Sokhiev, and Vasily Petrenko.

In China, Ning Feng is held in the highest regard, appearing with all the major Chinese orchestras, visiting international orchestras and in recital. In 2020/2021 he was Artist-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and in the same season he performed the Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major with Shanghai Symphony, Guangzhou Symphony and China Philharmonic orchestras.

He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall where he recently performed the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin of Bach, live-streamed on YouTube. He has performed many times at Kissinger Sommer Festival, and has collaborated with artists including Edgar Moreau, Daniel Müller-Schott and Nicholas Angelich and Igor Levit. In 2022/2023 he tours Italy with a solo Paganini programme.

Ning Feng records for Channel Classics. His recording of Bach’s complete solo works for violin was hailed by Gramophone as “unlike anyone else’s… it’s the illusion of a freewheeling conversation projected from within that held me captive.” His discography also includes concerti by Elgar, Finzi, Tchaikovsky, Bruch (Scottish Fantasy), works for violin and orchestra by Sarasate, Lalo, Ravel and Bizet/Waxman, and with the Dragon Quartet works by Schubert, Dvořák, Borodin, Shostakovich and Weinberg. 

Born in Chengdu, China, he studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music with Hu Weimin, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin with Antje Weithaas and the Royal Academy of Music 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, 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. 

Ning Feng plays the 1710 Stradivari violin known as the ‘Vieuxtemps Hauser’, by kind arrangement with Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, and plays on strings by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna. He lives in Berlin and is a Violin Professor at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, and also holds the position of International Chair of Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.