Adding another string to his bow

After Mei ended his performance in the final round of the audition, he recalls that he received applause from the other musicians.

"The very first recording I listened to when I was a child was of the Berliner Philharmoniker, and I didn't know then that one day I would have the opportunity to perform with the orchestra," says Mei, adding that along his path to becoming a musician, he has listened to recordings of the orchestra many times over, which allowed him to learn and improve.

Mei will start his two-year-long probation period with the orchestra from the beginning of the 2022-2023 season. Currently, he remains principal viola of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

After the news of Mei winning in the audition, the Munich Philharmonic said on social media that it is letting him go "with one eye crying and the other smiling".

Mei was born in Changsha, Hunan province, to parents who were both engineers. Like many Chinese children, he took part in a variety of classes after school, such as painting and English. He began playing the violin at the age of 5 because his grandfather, who was a history teacher at Hunan Normal University, was a big fan of classical music.

"He died when I was 5 and my mother led me to learn the violin as a way to commemorate him," recalls Mei.

In 2005, when a team from the middle school affiliated to the Central Conservatory of Music visited Changsha to recruit new students, Mei, 11 years old then, participated in the audition as a violinist. Wang Shaowu, one of the teachers from the school, was impressed by Mei's performance and suggested he switch to the viola, marking Mei's first introduction to the musical instrument. From 2005-14, he studied the viola with Wang at the middle school in Beijing.