She’s a Chinese cellist who’s worked with some of the world’s best artists and last week, Closer chatted to the immensely talented Tina Guo about Bieber, beating the bullies, and being nominated at this year’s Grammys.
China-born Tina, now 31, began playing the piano aged just three years old and, after moving to America two years later, started learning the violin.
“I was awful at the violin!” she says. “I couldn’t even get past Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So my dad started teaching me the cello aged six and the rest is history.”
Since then she’s performed on the Ellen show, toured with Cirque du Soleil and has featured on various movie soundtracks, as well as gracing the stage with some of the world’s hottest A-listers.
“Performing with Justin Bieber was incredible,” she says. “He was very energetic and didn’t have a bad attitude, despite people reporting that he has one! He was really chatty and friendly. He had an entourage of about thirty people, but he was still lovely to us all.”
“And Ariana Grande was awesome! She has a lot of style. She showed up in this huge sweatshirt and sunglasses and looked super cool, even though she’s tiny. And that voice – she really is super talented and really loud!”
And in reference to Ariana’s recent Instagram in which she claimed to be “the hardest working 23-year-old in the world”, Tina says: "I don’t know if she’s the hardest working, but she does work very hard indeed.”
Despite having played with some of the most famous musicians in the world, Tina says her proudest moment is when, after years of working, she finally paid off her student loans and cello lesson bills. “I saved and saved for years, living in incredibly sketchy situations including inside a garage behind someone's house, and in a studio flat next to a junkyard. It took me eight years but when I did, it felt really good because I earned every penny myself. It felt really good to know that everything I had I worked hard for.”
But with success comes haters, and while Tina has a great community of fans, she says that she suffers trolling on social media too. But instead of letting it slide, Tina says she chooses to call them out to try to encourage them to stop.
She says: “One of the most common troll comments I get is about my teeth! I have a dental condition where I'm missing most of my adult teeth and many of my teeth are permanently baby teeth and I get comments on those. I choose to answer back to both positive and negative comments I get, because I genuinely care about what people are saying, but with internet bullying, it's important to do something to show the people hiding behind their screens that being horrible to a person over the internet is exactly the same, if not worse than doing it face to face.
“When I do respond, it's usually something sarcastic and slightly tongue-in-cheek, or if it's truly ignorance based, I try to answer in a factual and easy-to-understand way. For someone to spend that precious time attacking others online is really sad.”
So while Tina puts the trolls behind her, her career keeps going from strength to strength. In October last year, Tina signed an exclusive record deal with Sony and her latest album – ‘Game On’ – will be released February 10th 2017 in the UK. And while she’s performed at the Grammys twice before - in 2008 and 2012 - she will return to the Grammys next month but this time, as Grammy nominee herself.
“I’m so excited!” she says. “It’s such an honour. I honestly don’t care if I win or lose at all, it’s just so amazing to be nominated. And this is the first time I’ll be going as an audience member – previously I’ve just performed! I can’t wait.”
‘Game On!’ by Tina Guo is released on Sony Masterworks on 10 February and available to pre-order now here