Clarinet player Victor Ni grew up in Qingdao, China, taking a 5-hour train ride to clarinet lessons in Beijing; 5 hours each way. Since that time, Ni has studied at Interlochen in Michigan and the Colburn School in California. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in clarinet performance from the Eastman School of Music at Rochester University in New York and was the prize winner at the 2023 International Clarinet Association Young Artist Competition.
Now, Victor Ni is the latest Performance Today Young Artist in Residence.
Ni has appeared with the National Youth Orchestra of China (NYO-China) both domestically and on two European tours and from 2016 to 2023 he’s routinely excelled in the competition world winning the second prize of the 2016 Central Conservatory of Music International Mozart Clarinet Competition in Beijing and snagging first place in the China National Clarinet Competition in Qingdao that same year. In 2020, Ni won the second prize at the Vandoren Emerging Artist competition. In 2021, he won the 1st Prize of the China-Spain International Music Competition - Clarinet session and the 1st Prize and the Grand Cash Prize of the Rising Star Berlin International Music Competition. In 2022, he was selected as a candidate for the Carl Nielsen International Competition.
On the festival circuit, Ni has appeared at such festivals as the Sarasota Music Festival in Sarasota, Florida, the Bowdoin Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine, and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Northern Germany. When we asked him about his career aspirations, Ni told us that he didn’t want to put a limit on what his career could look like because he is passionate about many different fields in classical music.
In addition to being an outstanding clarinet player, Ni is the kind of person who meets challenges with unhesitating optimism. And whenever he is not making music, you’ll likely find him in the kitchen cooking up his latest Chinese masterpiece to serve his friends. Ni is in his fifth year at the Eastman School working on a Master's in clarinet performance.
Pianist Samuel Leung joined Victor for this recording.
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