Violist Diyang Mei has been principal violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker since 2022 and holds a guest professorship at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Since his brilliant success in 2018 at the coveted ARD International Music Competition, where he won the first prize in the viola category, the Audience Award and several special prizes, Diyang Mei has rapidly advanced his international career. He won already in the previous years numerous first prizes, including at the 52nd International Instrumental Competition for Viola in Markneukirchen (2017), the Max Rostal International 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 Radio Philharmonie, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, the Black Forest Music Festival and the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, among others.
Highlights in 2024 included Diyang Mei’s concert as a soloist with the China Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach, which took place at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.
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 à L’École 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.