Biography

For as long as I can remember, there’s always been a guitar in the house. It belongs to my dad. He is not a professional guitarist, but at that time he was always interested in playing Bach and some other pieces outside of his busy working hours. Sometimes I listened to him, and I found that he would practice the difficult parts over and over again until he became proficient. He even got a teacher to help him learn, and he would take me with him in class, and I would hum the melody they had played. In retrospect, this may be my earliest musical enlightenment.

When I was about 4 years old, my parents took me to choose some interest classes in order to enrich my spare time. Painting, ballet dancing and violin playing were my choices. I learned these three things at the same time for a year and realised that it was hard for me to tolerate the boredom of painting and the pain brought by dancing, only for violin classes I was happy and was ‘the talented kid’. I can still remember that back then, every time I stretched my legs on ballet classes, I kept thinking, ‘Can time go by any faster?’ And as soon as class ended, I was the first one to dash out of the classroom — as violin classes happened right after.

In my 7th year of violin learning, I applied for the symphony orchestra of my junior and senior high school. I got in, then there was the classical moment: I was asked if I wanted to change to viola. I agreed as I really cherished this opportunity which I still feel thankful. It was my first time playing in an orchestra and this experience brought me so much joy, Beethoven Symphony No. 5 and 6, The Moldau and L’Apprenti Sorcier were the pieces I played since then. My school is not a music school and the academic pressure was very stressful, for me, the happiest thing back then was the orchestra rehearsal on every Sunday morning — we were not ‘professional musicians’ but we played with passion. I enjoyed played with other people and the music we made together, so naturally, I wanted to learn more about this art and was luckily accepted by Royal College of Music in 2020, under my dear professor Nathan Braude.

I never regretted changing from violin to viola. Violin is cool for sure, but I never felt like I belonged to it. Instead, I love the warmer timbre of the viola and when I play the viola, I feel more like myself. In addition to the abundance of activities in college, I was also lucky enough to got the chances to took part in IMS Prussia Cove masterclasses in 2023 and 2024, studied with Thomas Riebl and Lars Anders Tomter: surrounded by amazing nature and sea view, met wonderful people from all over the world through music, I would say those incredible 20 days were a dream come true. Thus, I am very proud that I have chosen this musical path and believe that I am a lucky person. I am very looking forward to beginning an exciting journey with Sinfonia Smith Square and am ready for new challenges.