Chinese violist Diyang Mei recently clinched first place in the viola section of the ARD Music Competition in Munich.

‘He is an imaginative interpreter,’ our correspondent Chloe Cutts wrote in her report of the final rounds and his performance of the Bartók concerto.

‘In his hands the opening theme wandered like a lost soul, full of desolate, keen-edged beauty; elsewhere he delved into the darker, aggressively rhythmic passages with thrilling tenacity.

‘The central Adagio religioso was as sweetly yearning as one could desire, and by the end of the piece the listener had the impression of a player who might just have that intangible quality of an influential voice, perhaps even a new advocate for the viola.’

Topics