Columbus’ Darren Li already seems like a veteran violinist.
For starters, the 17-year-old Columbus North High School senior-to-be is the only paid student apprentice with the professional Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. He also recently was named winner of the mostly volunteer Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s Laura Showalter Youth Concerto Competition. Consequently, he will be a featured soloist at the symphony’s 3:30 p.m. Sunday concert at The Commons in downtown Columbus.
He will perform the first movement of Violin Concerto No. 7 in A minor, Op. 9 by Pierre Rode. He performed the work in February at the local and prestigious Brown Music Awards and also later at the Indiana State School Music Association competition.
“With a lot of those events right in a row, there’s not a lot of time to learn a new piece,” Li said of the work.
In the past, he has played with the local symphony as part of their “side-by-side” family concerts in which student musicians perform next to adult members of the ensemble.
“I still have a lot to learn,” he said.
He especially looks up to professional and celebrated violinists such as Joshua Bell and Itzhak Perlman.
“I really admire their stage presence and their technique,” Li said.
He began playing at age 4, and began lessons with current instructor Laura Andrews by the age of 8. He now serves as concertmaster of the Andrews String Studio ensemble.
“I think I’ve already gone pretty far,” he said. “A big factor to my getting to this point has been taking time to listen to musicians who are better than I am,” he said.
Persistence has served him well thus far, he said.
“I’ll generally keep going over and over something until it finally clicks,” Li said. “That persistence has helped me learn to isolate the parts that I need to work on the most, and that, in turn, has helped me to really improve.”
Columbus Symphony Orchestra and Columbus Indiana Philharmonic violinist Andrews is impressed with all his success, including statewide honors.
“I was beyond proud of him to not only be accepted by audition into the Indiana All-State Orchestra but also, based on his audition, be honored with the concertmaster position,” Andrews said.
Besides his violin [prowess, Li also qualified for the 2020 IMEA All-State Band on trombone, was a 2022 US National Chemistry Olympiad National Exam nominee,
Away from the concert hall, Li plays tennis at North and enjoys movies such as the recent release “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” and role-playing video games Warframe and Valorant. In the meantime, he’s happy to be taking the stage with the symphony.
“This,” he said “will give me a lot more confidence.”
