Diyang Mei
is the 1st principal violist with the Berliner Philharmoniker since 2022 and holds a guest professorship at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. Since his brilliant success in 2018 at the coveted ARD International Music Competition, where he won first prize in the viola category, the Audience Award and several special prizes, Diyang Mei has made great strides in his international career. However, he has also won numerous first prizes in previous years, including at the 52nd International Instrumental Competition for Viola in Markneukirchen (2017), the International Max Rostal Music Competition for Viola in Berlin (2015), the Kulturkreis Gasteig Music Prize for Strings in Munich (2015), the 19th International Brahms Music Competition for Viola in Austria (2012), the IVC Young Artist Competition in Rochester (2012) and the 10th International Viola and Violoncello Competition in Villa de Llanes, Spain (2008).

Since 2018, Diyang Mei has been supported as a BBT Artist by the London Borletti-Buitoni Trust, which has also supported Nicolas Altstaedt, Gautier Capuçon, Veronica Eberle, Sol Gabetta, Vilde Frank, Antoine Tamestit and Kathia Buniatishvili, among others.

From 2019 to 2022, he was principal viola of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a soloist, Diyang Mei has performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, the Black Forest Music Festival and the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, among others. Highlights in 2024 include his solo appearances with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie under the direction of Brett Dean and with the China Philharmonic Orchestra at the National Centre for the Performing Arts under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach.

As a sought-after chamber musician, Diyang has already performed with renowned musicians and ensembles such as Sir András Schiff, Frans Helmerson, Emmanuel Pahud, Albrecht Mayer, Sabine Meyer, Christoph Prégardien, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Kian Soltani, Pablo Ferrández, the Belcea Quartet and the Berlin Baroque Soloists, with whom he went on a major tour of China in 2023.

In 2019, Diyang Mei released his first solo album dedicated to the Chaconne and Passacaglia genres and works by Bach, Biber, Hindemith, Britten and Ligeti. His second album ‘Viola a L’Ecole de Paris’ with works for viola and piano by Cherepnin, Harsani, Tansman and Mihalovici followed in 2022 on the CAvI Music label (a Deutsche Grammophon company).

The musician plays an Antonio Mariani viola (Pesaro, ca. 1646), generously loaned by a member of the Stretton Society.

Noah Bendix-Balgley
enjoys a wide-ranging musical life as a violinist. He is First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker and tours both as a chamber musician and as a soloist. His clear and heartfelt personal sound has reached and moved listeners around the world.

As soloist, Noah appears frequently with leading international orchestras, as well as in recital at the world’s finest concert halls. Recent highlights include his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall as the featured soloist on the Berliner Philharmoniker USA tour under the direction of Kirill Petrenko, as well as concerto appearances with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Dresden, Auckland, Nagoya, and Oklahoma City. He has also performed with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and the Shanghai, Utah, Quebec, Adelaide, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. He has toured with Apollo’s Fire Orchestra performing on period instruments, performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein and the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, toured with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and given recitals at the Philharmonie Berlin, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, and the National Concert Hall in Taipei. In the upcoming season, he curates and presents a week-long celebration of the violin with his hometown Asheville Symphony, including a solo violin recital and an all-concerto program. He also returns to the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and makes his debuts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra.

Noah is a renowned performer of traditional klezmer music, a musical style that has been part of his life since an early age. He has performed groups such as Brave Old World, and has taught at many klezmer workshops. In 2016, Noah composed and premiered his own klezmer violin concerto, Fidl-Fantazye, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where he was concertmaster from 2011 to 2015. Since the premiere, he has also performed the work with the Baltimore Symphony, the China Philharmonic, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In November 2021, he premiered the chamber orchestra version of Fidl-Fantazye with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, a version he also presented with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker in a special ‘Late Night’ klezmer concert at the Philharmonie Berlin.

A passionate chamber musician, Noah performs in several ensembles: in a trio with pianist Robert Levin and cellist Peter Wiley, with the Rosamunde String Quartet that

includes members of the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, and with the multi- genre septet Philharmonix, which features members of both the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. Philharmonix tours worldwide, has an ongoing multi-year residency at Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and in 2022 released its third album on Deutsche Grammophon. In the 2023/24 season, he tours with Philharmonix around China, Korea, and Japan. Noah’s other recent chamber highlights include performances at the Seattle Music Festival, Bergen International Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Zermatt Music Festival, Aix-en-Provence, and La Jolla Summerfest.

Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Noah began playing the violin at age 4. At age 9, he played for Lord Yehudi Menuhin. He graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the Munich Hochschule. His principal mentors were Mauricio Fuks, Christoph Poppen and Ana Chumachenco. A laureate of the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition, he also won top prizes at the Long-Thibaud Competition in France and the Postacchini Competition in Italy.

Now a gifted educator himself, Noah teaches at the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He has served on the juries of the Menuhin Competition, the Indianapolis International Violin Competition, and as chair of the violin jury at the the Carl Nielsen Competition. He has given masterclasses at his alma mater Indiana University, and at academies around the world including Morningside Music Bridge, Domaine Forget, the Australian National Academy of Music, the Shanghai Orchestra Academy, and the Peabody Institute.