[VIOLIN MUSIC]
DUOMING BA: Hello my name is Duoming Ba, violinist
in the New York Philharmonic.
[INSTRUMENTS TUNING]
[CLASSICAL MUSIC]
The violin chose me.
When I was little, my family was given a kid-sized violin
and my parents saw an ad in the newspaper
about a group violin class.
And that's how I started to play the violin.
This is an old Italian violin by Tommaso Balestrieri
and it is on loan to me.
The person who loaned it to me is Lin [? Ke ?] [? Mei ?]
and he's from Singapore.
He is the person who actually sponsored my trip to the USA.
That was back in 1995.
I was a soloist with the China Youth Symphony
and Mr. Lin saw me performing.
And that's how we met him.
We became friends and he sponsored my trip to the USA
and supported me through my studies.
It's really wonderful to see old friends
and we all work in the same place.
I know many of them back from Curtis days.
Our principal oboist, Liang Wang, our principal clarinet,
Anthony McGill, and I also know Frank Huang
from when we were back in music festival
and at Music Academy of the West.
Being a stand partner is great because you
have a friend who will be covering for you
and it's actually mostly we have to make sure
that we have enough space.
We all share one music and the outside player
always plays, and the inside player turns the pages.
And when we, as string players, sometimes we
would have very difficult passages
that we have to write fingerings in.
And outside players usually write their fingerings
on top of the notes and the inside player puts it
at the bottom of the notes.
To play together, exactly together as a section,
we have to breathe together and that comes from the conductor.
And if we feel the upbeat, then usually we'll
all be able to play all together.
What stands out for me in my career in the New York
Philharmonic was our trip to North Korea, which
was very interesting and also brought back a lot of memories
from when I was a child who grew up in rural China.
A lot of things were very similar.
So I felt very powerful on that trip.
I have two young boys, they are 8 and 10.
So I make sure they practice.
They both study violin and the piano.
I want to make sure that they are educated when they grow up,
when they go to a concert hall they
know what they're listening to.
I remember when I first joined the orchestra,
the first rehearsal sitting inside the section,
it was just amazing.
Everything sounds like I am actually in the recording.
And until this day I still feel the same way.
So the best thing is to hear just wonderful music
every single time.
[CLASSICAL MUSIC]