Zhao Yingna

Zhao Yingna currently holds the position of Principal Second Violin of the HK Phil, and she is also a member of the HK Phil String Quartet. Yingna is the instructor of “The Orchestra Academy” (TOA) based on a collaboration between the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the HKPhil. She has conducted masterclasses with the talented students of TOA in numerous occasions. and she has many times given masterclasses to these talented students. Furthermore, she has been invited as an instructor to the “Young Pro Platform”, where she teaches and performs with the students in many renown chamber music concerts. She is extremely dedicated to nourishing the next talented generation in their orchestral and chamber music careers.

Yingna has been invited to 2022 Singapore Raffles International Music Festival as one of the Violin Jury members, and she will also teach a series of open masterclasses for the winning talents. In 2018, the Hong Kong Generation Next Arts Music Festival invited Yingna to perform in the Mendelssohn String Octet Concert, which received critical acclaim. In addition, Yingna has been invited multiple times to perform as Guest Principal Second Violin with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

Prior to coming to Hong Kong, Yingna attended the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin where she received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. While in Germany, she was the Assistant Principal Second Violin of the Orchestra of the German Opera Berlin. She was also Tutti Violin of the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin (DSO) and the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2005, she was appointed concertmaster and soloist of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra, which collaborated with world-renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Christopher Hogwood, Herbert Blomstedt, Ivan Fischer, and Mikhail Pletnev, on tours to Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, Russia, Brazil, and Japan.

Yingna was a first prize winner of the International Violin Competition "Andrea Postacchini” in Italy.  She also won the “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben” of Hamburg, for which she was awarded a Carlo Guiseppe Testore violin from the German Music Instruments Foundation.

Yingna attended the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under Professor Yaoji Lin.  She was awarded the prize of excellence in the 3^rd Violin Competition in Central Conservatory of Music and the silver prize in the 1^st China France Mido Violin Competition. She appeared as a soloist performing under the baton of the famous Chinese conductor Delun Li, and she also performed with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra under Hui Zhu. Her debut recording included a highly commented performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.