In terms of your second question, I have had such moments in the past but I rarely listen just for one moment. I can think of one such example though: when the horn motif in the last movement of Sibelius 5 gets going .....

The playing has to cohere as a performance and not sound like one is just taking a test.

Difficulty is always an interesting question, because people typically expect some kind of staggering intellectual or technical difficulty. Pieces of that sort include Berg's Chamber Concerto (where arguably playing the trio version of the Adagio with clarinet and piano, conductorless, was more difficult than playing the complete work), the "Seven Trumpets" from Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time, and Brett Dean's "Hamlet" which we played at the Met last season.

In the end, however, apparently simple pieces of sheer poetry are always more difficult -- Bach, Mozart, Schubert.

One does indeed have to take care of the basics, to which I would add tone as well as pitch and rhythm. But the basics aren't enough; at the top professional level one takes those qualities for granted. The winner usually sounds like a winner, i.e. they're playing music (with brilliance, expression, emotion, etc.) and not just notes.

I think it's similar to any other human achievement (e.g. athletics) or even something like fine wines or instruments. Highly accomplished violinists are already an incredibly small subset of the population, but what separates the best of the best from the others is usually at once incredibly minute, yet just out of reach for almost everyone. With a violinist, it might be superhuman reflexes and coordination (in the case of a Hilary Hahn) or it might be the ability to turn and sustain a phrase.

In the world of collectibles (wine, instruments, etc.) you see a super premium being paid at the very highest end, often many times what the "next best" fetches in terms of price, even if the difference is only .01%

That's a really good question, and one that's not at all easy to answer. Without resorting to "you know it when you see it," I would say that the good conductor has everything in place -- good technique, clarity, vision of the piece, rehearsal style, etc. The great conductor is able to go beyond that and inspire. The sum total is something that goes beyond the ordinary. What that is exactly or how one gets there is much harder to define.

I do believe organizations such as the Met are willing to sponsor visas, but the truth is we don't get a ton of applicants from outside the country for most auditions, though we did get a fair amount of interest for the concertmaster position (i.e. the equivalent position to mine) a few years ago.

I wish I could say that players are consulted for artistic decisions, but we just aren't. I do agree it's been great to see a movement towards more modern and varied programming. Despite that, however, I'm most excited this season about Lohengrin, which has come up only once during my 23-year Met career, and Idomeneo, a profound Mozart work that we don't play often enough.

Hard to pick just one. Uchida, Brendel in no particular order are also favorites.

The Bible

Not me, but I've played with people who have!

Emil Gilels / Karl Böhm !

The modern taste for Mozart playing would be lighter and crisper than what Böhm gets here, but the poetry of Gilels is still unsurpassed.

John Williams is an amazing musician and likely would have written terrific Baroque music had he been composing in the 1700s!

As much as I recognize great classic film scores from early cinema (Korngold's Robin Hood, Hermann, etc.) I'll readily confess that my favorite film score is Star Wars.

Uh, never? ;)

Truthfully, at the top professional level it doesn't happen much. It can happen, but rarely in commonly played pieces; it would tend to happen in some sort of unfamiliar or extremely challenging work, and where there's some kind of extenuating circumstance (e.g. problem on stage in the opera, some kind of technical difficulty, etc.)

Ah great question by expanding it beyond the violin!

Tough choice but it would have to be one of the last piano concertos -- nos. 21, 23, 24 and 27 all top the list but if I had to pick just one it would probably be the last one, K. 595 (#27)

With performers it's pretty clear. In the past few decades, Asian musicians (including myself) have come to dominate the ranks of string players (not so much with winds and brass). When I was in school, however, it was more Korean and Japanese players, whereas now it's trending more and more towards Chinese students.

With the new emphasis on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion however, I expect that we'll see more and more trends towards minorities that traditionally haven't necessarily been a part of classical music.

I can NOT! It's hard enough to play the "right" way ....

Oops just saw the second half of the question. If I had to start over, I'd play the cello.

Violinosaurus?

My parents chose it for me! It just found its way into my hands haha.

Hi there!

Good question, but at that level it's usually super talented individuals that catch my attention. Student-formed ensembles don't always show up on my radar screen right away.