Hai-Ye Ni joined The Philadelphia Orchestra as principal cello at the beginning of the 2006–07 season after having served as associate principal cello of the New York Philharmonic since 1999. During the 2010–11 season she was featured on a Philadelphia Orchestra concert as soloist in Tan Dun’s The Map, Concerto for Cello, Video, and Orchestra. She made her solo debut with the Orchestra in January 2010 in Saint-Saens’s Cello Concerto No. 1. She first came into prominence after her critically praised New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1991, a result of her winning first prize at the Naumburg International Cello Competition.