Our Stories

Yijie Ding was born and raised in Foshan City, Guangdong province, China. She started learning the violin at 6 and conquered the difficulty of being blind since she was born. Other than learning the violin, she also had many interests as a kid, including playing the piano, singing, and attempted some challenging sports. 

As the first blind violin student studying at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in violin, she studies with Professor Michael Ma. Prior to this, she studied with Ms. Kaiyi Ma in Guangzhou.  

 

In 2017, since she was not the full-time student of the Academy yet, she had to travel for more than 10 hours to Hong Kong to have a violin lesson every week. The following year, she was admitted to the Academy as a bachelor’s degree student with full scholarship.  

 

She is currently in the 1st year of her master’s degree in APA. She is a very active student at school, frequently taking part in different solo and chamber performances. As well as working with different orchestra in Hong Kong as a soloist. In 2019, she was invited by the Hong Kong Art Festival to play in the recital, which was her very first solo recital in Hong Kong. During her studies, she always participates in masterclasses, solo performances, and music festivals, she was privileged enough to have performed in Japan, Austria and in different cities of Germany as a solo performer. She has successful collaborations with the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of Hong Kong and the True Colors Symphony. 

In 2021, she won the 2nd prize of the young artist section and the special jury prize in HKGNA International Music Competition. She was also the winner of the VSA International Young Soloist Competition. The winner of the 19th gold concert in 2022.