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| Sarah Chang | |
|---|---|
 Sarah Chang before a concert, 2005 | |
| Born | (1980-12-10) December 10, 1980 (age 44) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Violinist |
Sarah Chang (born December 10, 1980) is a Korean-American violin virtuoso.
Early life
Chang was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Korean parents. Min-Soo Chang, her father, is a violinist and Myoung Jun Chang, her mother, is a composer. Her family had moved to the United States in 1979 so that Chang's father could study for an advanced music degree at Temple University. Her mother was taking composition classes at the University of Pennsylvania. She has a younger brother named Michael.
Sarah liked to play one-finger melodies on the piano at the age of 3 but asked her parents for a violin, started playing a rented one-sixteenth-size violin at 4 and auditioned for the Juilliard School at 6 playing the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. She was admitted into the studio of the late Dorothy DeLay, violin teacher to some of the world's great violinists including Itzhak Perlman, Midori Goto, Anne Akiko Meyers, Gil Shaham, Shlomo Mintz and many others, including Chang's father Min-Soo Chang. She was also taught by Hyo Kang, a former student and assistant of DeLay. She kept attending grade school in the Philadelphia area and studied music on Saturdays at Juilliard.
Chang was recognized as a child prodigy early on and when she was 8, was given the opportunity to audition with such names as Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti, who were working, respectively, with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Both gave her immediate engagements.
She recorded her first album, aptly entitled Debut, in 1989, but it was not released by EMI Classics until 1992. It quickly reached the Billboard chart of classical best-sellers. Her teacher in an interview claimed that no one had ever seen "anything like her."
Career
She has collaborated with most major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the principal London orchestras, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.
Among the conductors with whom she has worked are Mariss Jansons, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Placido Domingo, David Lockington and David Zinman.
Notable recital engagements have included her Carnegie Hall debut and performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Barbican Centre in London, the Philharmonie in Berlin, as well as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
As a chamber musician, Chang has collaborated with such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman, Martha Argerich, Leif Ove Andsnes, Stephen Kovacevich, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Lars Vogt, and the late Isaac Stern. She has made several chamber recordings with current and former members of the Berlin Philharmonic, including the Sextet and Piano Quintet of Dvorak and the Souvenir de Florence of Tchaikovsky.
She currently plays the 1717 Guarneri del Gesu violin, which she purchased in her teens. She uses a variety of bows: Pajeot for Mozart and Bach; Sartory for "the big-whammy concertos, the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius"; and two Dominique Peccattes for other music.
Along with Pete Sampras and Wynton Marsalis, she is a featured artist in watchmaker Movado's global advertising campaign "The Art of Time." For the June 2004 Olympics, she was given the honor of running with the Olympic Torch in New York. In 2005, Yale University dedicated a chair in Sprague Hall in Chang's name.
She speaks English, Korean, and German.
Awards
Sarah Chang has received a number of awards, including:
- Avery Fisher Career Grant (1992)
- Gramophone Magazine "Young Artist of the Year" (1993)
- "Echo" award (Germany) ("Newcomer of the Year") 1993
- "Nan Pa" award (South Korea)
- "Newcomer of the Year" at the International Classical Music Awards (1994)
- Avery Fisher Prize (1999) One of three women to first win the prestigious music award.
- Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana Award in Siena, Italy (2004)
- Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame award (the youngest person ever to receive it) (2004).
Discography
- 1992 Debut. Sarasate, Elgar, Paganini
- 1993 Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances 1, 2, 4 7/Peter Tchaikowsky: Violin concert op 35. (Colin Davis)
- 1996 Édouard Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole/Henri Vieuxtemps: Violin concert Nr. 5. Orchestra: Concertgebouw Orchestra (Lalo)/Philharmonia Orchestra (Vieuxtemps), Charles Dutoit
- 1997 Simply Sarah
- 1998 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Jean Sibelius: Violin concerts. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker, Maris Jansons
- 1999 Sweet Sorrow. Pieces of Vitali, Gluck, Brahms, Lalo, Vieuxtemps, Paganini, Sibelius, Liszt, Tschaikowsky, Saint-Saens, misc. Orchestras, conductors
- 1999 Richard Strauss: Violin concert and Violin sonata. Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conductor and piano: Wolfgang Sawallisch
- 2000 Karl Goldmark: Violin concert op. 29. Orchestra: Gürzenich-Orchester, conductor: James Conlon
- 2002 Fire and Ice. Sarasate, Massenet, Ravel, Beethoven, J. S. Bach, Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker, conductor: Plácido Domingo
- 2002 Antonín Dvořák, Tchaikowsky: (with other artists) Souvenir de Florence
- 2003 Classical Legends. Compilation ft Sarah Chang and other artists
- 2004 French Violin sonatas. Piano: Lars Vogt
- 2004 Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonies. Disc 4: The Lark Ascending. Conductor: Bernard Haitink
- 2005 Meisterwerke der Kammermusik. Compilation ft Sarah Chang and other artists, 3 CD
- 2005 Andrew Lloyd Webber: Phantasia (with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber)
- 2006 Dmitri Shostakovich: Violinconcert Nr.1/Sergej Prokofieff: Violinconcert Nr. 1. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker, Conductor: Simon Rattle
- 2007 Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, and Violin Concerto in g, op 12 no 1, RV 317. Orchestra: Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
References
- Dervan, Michael (January 29, 2009). "Living with the 'prodigy' tag". Irish Times. Retrieved January 29, 2009.
- ^ James Reel, Childhood's End: For Former Prodigy Sarah Chang, Adulthood Offers a New World of Possibilities, Strings Magazine, January 2004
- ^ http://www.opus3artists.com/artists/sarah-chang
External links
- Official website
- EMI Classics biography page
- Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks
- Extract of recording the album Phantasia plus interview on YouTube
- Artist Management
- Sarah Chang at AllMusic