Rui Du

Rui Du was appointed assistant concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra in 2015. He had previously been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where he won fourth chair in the first violin section in 2012 and soon after was named acting assistant concertmaster. Additionally, he served as concertmaster of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2009. Since 2015, Du has been a regular guest concertmaster of China’s Qingdao Symphony Orchestra under maestro Zhang Guo-Yong. He has also served as concertmaster of the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, Hebei Symphony, Guiyang Symphony and North Dakota Symphony, and as associate concertmaster of the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra.

Du has won numerous competitions, including the Grand Prix at the 2006 Canetti International Violin Competition in Paris, where he also clinched numerous concert engagements. He appears regularly as a soloist and recitalist across the United States, Europe and throughout Asia, and has been featured as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Aspen Music Festival Ensemble, and the symphonies of Fujian, Hebei, Qingdao, Baltimore, Mankato and South Dakota. Du has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Osmo Vänskä, Zhang Guo-Yong, Nicholas McGegan and Delta David Gier, among others. Recent solo performances have included concertos by Korngold, Barber, Tchaikovsky, Brandenburg and Vivaldi. In January 2019, Du made his solo debut with the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of then-music director Osmo Vänskä. He was a featured soloist in the Orchestra’s inaugural Lunar New Year celebration concert in February 2022, performing Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto; the concert was livestreamed and broadcast on Twin Cities PBS (TPT-2).

An avid chamber musician, Du has worked and performed with many great musicians, and has participated in renowned summer music festivals including those of Aspen, Tanglewood, Las Vagas, Canetti and Voyage, among others. He also performs regularly on the chamber music series of the Minnesota Orchestra and ProMusica Minnesota, and through Mankato Symphony Orchestra’s Music on the Hill series. With his wife Hanna Hyunjung Kim, principal pianist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, he co-founded Ensemble Muzén, a mixed chamber ensemble with renowned musicians in the Twin Cities.

As an enthusiastic educator, Du has given numerous masterclasses and lectures to conservatories and festivals throughout the U.S. and China.

Born in Hefei, China, Du studied in the Music Middle School of the Shanghai Conservatory; he completed a bachelor’s of music from the National University of Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, where he won the Artistic Achievement Award, and subsequently received a master’s of music and graduate performance diploma with a full scholarship from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. His teachers include Zhou Bin You, Qian Zhou, Victor Danchenko and Herbert Greenberg.