Tong Li, Violin and Viola
Violinist Tong Li is an active chamber and orchestral musician in the DMV area. She regularly plays with the Virginia Symphony, Annapolis Symphony, Mount Vernon Virtuosi, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony, and Symphoria. Tong is a substitute musician with the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida, and was an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra. She was recently the concertmaster of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival and has participated in other festivals such as Interlochen, Brevard, AIMs in Graz, Maine Chamber Music Seminar, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra Institute, where she held principal and leadership positions.
An advocate for music composed by minority and female composers, Tong received the M-cubator grant from the University of Maryland and curated an Asian-American Composers concert featuring artists and composers of diverse backgrounds. Tong has been a member of many contemporary ensembles such as Eastman Musica Nova, NOI+F’s contemporary ensemble, and is currently a member of ARCO - a chamber group formed at the University of Maryland that performs and teaches across the DMV area.
Tong is a graduate of the University of Maryland, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Rochester where she received her degrees in Violin Performance and Economics. Her principal teachers include Renee Jolles and James Stern. She was a concerto competition finalist and the chamber music graduate assistant at Maryland. She also studied at the preparatory division of the Cleveland Institute of Music with members of the Cleveland Orchestra where she graduated with honors.
Tong has soloed with the Lakeland Civic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg summer festival orchestra playing Mozart’s violin concerto no.4 and Wieniawski’s violin concerto no.2. She was also the recipient of scholarships from the Cleveland Orchestra Women’s Club and CPEA talent scholarship competition. She has played in masterclasses for Ani Kavafian, Frank Huang, Audrey Wright, Giora Schmidt, Gary Levinson, Peter Zazofsky, and Melissa White. Other mentors include Juliana Athayde, Alexander Kerr, Jennifer Ross, Jing Qiao, Soh-Hyun Park, and Corinne Stillwell. Tong has a passion for teaching, and has served as a violin section mentor for the Maryland Classical Youth Orchestra teaches at the International School of Music in Potomac, MD, and the Opal Music Studio in Alexandria, VA. She also maintains a private studio.