Da-Hong Seetoo (; born September 29, 1960) is a classical

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproducti ...

, and

Violinist The following lists of violinists are available: * List of classical violinists, notable violinists from the baroque era onwards * List of contemporary classical violinists, notable contemporary classical violinists * List of violinist/compose ...

. He has worked for the German classical record label,

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family o ...

, and has recorded artists such as the

Emerson String Quartet The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in 1976. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and beg ...

Daniel Barenboim Daniel Barenboim (; in he, דניאל בארנבוים, born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. He has been since 1992 General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeist ...

Gil Shaham Gil Shaham (Hebrew: גיל שחם; born February 19, 1971) is an American violinist of Israeli Jewish descent. Biography Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his Israeli parents were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illino ...

, David Finckel, Wu Han, and numerous others. Since the early 1980s and has won several

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

s for his recordings.

Childhood and early years

Seetoo began playing the violin at age two and a half. Seetoo's mother was a pianist and his father was a violinist who taught at the Shanghai Conservatory. He grew up during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and had to practice with the windows closed because Western music was forbidden. His father was able to purchase, at great expense, a

Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the ''Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company'). The name "Telefunken" app ...

reel-to-reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is Magnetic tape#Audio, magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') contain ...

hybrid tube and transistor based tape deck so he could copy any of the recordings that were circulated underground. “No one knew how to fix it, so I learned how to fix it myself. I was always interested in electronics. I built my first radio when I was seven years old,” he related. He skipped the first four years of college, going directly to the Shanghai Conservatory where he was a violin prodigy. In 1979 he played for Boston Symphony concertmaster Joseph Silverstein who recommended him to the Curtis Institute of Music where he was admitted without a live audition. He studied with Ivan Galamian, graduated in 1984, and continued graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music, studying with the legendary Dorothy DeLay. He became known for making audition tapes for students. “People knew I was always tinkering with recordings – it came naturally,” he said. He started a performance career after graduating from Juilliard, but found the lifestyle lonely and unsatisfying. After six months he was asked to fill in for a sick engineer who was recording Bach Partitas for violinist Eugene Drucker of the Emerson Quartet.

Awards

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance (joint winner) for the recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's complete

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

s. * 2006

Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical The Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Classical has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes: *In 1959 the award was known as Best Engineered Record (Classical) *From 1960 to 1962 it was awarded as Best Enginee ...

for the recording of Felix Mendelssohn's complete

References

External links

Short bioInterview with Da-Hong Seetoo
1960 births Grammy Award winners Juilliard School alumni Living people Musicians from Shanghai Audio production engineers {{music-producer-stub