JTC 26: Following Her Passion for Performance

Linna Zheng began her college journey at the University of Mississippi with sights set on becoming a dentist. But by her junior year, she realized that her passion and personality were better suited for a career in music. 

After all, the Fulton resident had been playing violin since she was 5 and played piccolo in the university's Pride of the South Marching Band and flute in the Wind Ensemble during her early college years. After switching her major to music with an emphasis in music performance, she also joined the Lafayette-Oxford-University Symphony Orchestra, performing as a soloist and serving as concertmaster each year. 

Her passion for music has pushed Zheng to be a part of different ensembles and to mentor younger musicians through the Oxford String Project and LOU Youth Symphony.  

“Being a part of these different ensembles allowed me to build a connection with other musicians who are not just string players,” said Zheng, who graduates in May. “Working with the younger children of the OSP and Youth Symphony gives me insights into pedagogue, which is also a skill that I want to improve.  

"These experiences all gave me more ideas of the techniques and skills when working with others who are outside of my primary field: playing the violin.” 

That mentorship left a lasting impression on those she worked alongside. 

“It has been a joy to watch Linna develop into both an accomplished violinist and a thoughtful leader,” said Armee Hong, instructor of upper strings. “During the times she worked with the String Project and Youth Orchestra, she connected naturally with younger students and served as a wonderful role model, demonstrating both musical excellence and genuine care.” 

Her growth as a performer has been equally remarkable. Selim Giray, director of orchestral studies, has watched that development firsthand. 

“Linna Zheng started at Ole Miss as a music minor, and through the years has grown immensely as a brilliant performer, which resulted in her winning the 2021 Department of Music Concerto Competition with Scherzo-Tarantelle by Wieniawski and performing it in 2022 with the LOU Symphony,” Giray said.  

Building connections has been a theme throughout Zheng’s time at Ole Miss. She is a Luckyday Scholar and lived in the Luckyday Residential College during her freshman year. She also is a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Both programs allowed her to build a sense of community on campus while finding her own way on her college journey.  

Through the Honors College, she explored possibilities outside of performance. Working with Michael Gardiner, associate professor of music, she composed her own cadenza for Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5, incorporating blues and country music styles into the musical standalone piece, infusing a bit of bluegrass into Mozart. 

“Composing is all new to me, so in the initial stage, I was really trying to find that ‘feel' and ‘effect’ that I wanted in the music, all while trying to understand the music theory behind," Zheng said. "I would just fiddle around on my violin to make something sound right. Eventually, I composed a cadenza that I wanted: bluegrass in Mozart.”  

The project reflects Zheng's creative ambition and her ability to bridge musical worlds, Gardiner said. For her Mozart project, she started with the composer's violin influences and imagined what it might sound like with modern influences, he said. 

“After analyzing several traditional cadenza models, she synthesized an experimental version that blends bluegrass fiddle techniques and quotations with more traditional elaborative techniques expected in an 18th-century concerto," he said.  

“Linna successfully shows how classical musicians can still surprise and challenge the mind’s ear with a project that reveals the truly creative dimensions of music theory placed in the hands of a thinking musician. I hope she continues to experiment and innovate in this domain.” 

Zheng’s musical roots run deep in her family. Her brother, Qixian Zheng, an Ole Miss accountancy major, plays trumpet. As children, the siblings also took piano lessons together. 

Her grandfather in China plays the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-string fiddle, and the dizi, a Chinese bamboo flute. He performs with local community theaters and operas as side gigs. 

A first-generation college student, Zheng credits her father as her biggest mentor outside of academics.  

“I always go to him to ask about opinions and his thoughts, even for the smallest things,” she said. “A lot of the questions I ask him are more ‘life lesson’ questions.” 

Navigating those unknowns was not always easy for Zheng. 

“The biggest challenge as a first-generation college student is not knowing what to expect when entering college my freshman year," Zheng said. "It means that I need to do more research on my own on how applications work, deadlines, documentations, etc.” 

But with the backing of her musical community at Ole Miss, Zheng worked through all those challenges. She is set to enroll this fall at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she plans to pursue a master's degree in violin performance.

Top: Linna Zheng, a music performance senior from Fulton, pivoted from pre-dentistry to become a concerto competition winner, concertmaster of the LOU Symphony and mentor to younger musicians. She also composed her own bluegrass-infused Mozart cadenza and earned admission to Carnegie Mellon University's violin performance master's program. Photo by Srijita Chattopadhyay/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

See more photos from Linna Zheng's Journey to Commencement