And Sarah Chang, a renowned violinist: PBS: Joyce Yang an outstanding Concert Pianist
- From: rst0wxyz <rst0wxyz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:16:24 -0800 (PST)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Chang
Early life
Chang was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of Korean heritage. 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.
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. 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, 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.
At 9, she was possibly the youngest violinist ever to record. Her
first album, aptly entitled Debut, was recorded in 1989 when she was
nine years old, but 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."
[edit] Career
Sarah Chang performing outdoors at the Festival I suoni delle Dolomiti
in 2005.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 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, Ms. 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.
[edit]
On Jan 30, 12:04 pm, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The program started off unpromisingly enough. It was a white guy
commenting on music appreciation. From experience they tend to be
snotty types talking down to us the great unwashed. My CBC classical
music radio station commentator just drives me up the wall with his
upper class English accent. I was pecking at my computer and not
looking at the TV. Then this Asian voice caught my ear. She spoke
English well, like an ABC, but still with a recognizable Oriental
accent. Took a look. She looked Chinese. Then she played a passage
from Listz's Hungarian Rhapsody #6. It was a fantastic virtuoso
performance. The notes just flew off her keyboards like a string of
pearls.. I like these rhapsodies enough to have heard many versions
over the years. Oddly enough for a guy who is not musically
particular I am fussy as to how it is played and I have heard many
interpretations that just rattle my ears. Hers was perfect.
I watched the rest of the program in rapture. I agreed with
everything the commentator said about this young lady although I
cannot remember his exact words. Thus my paraphrasing what I think he
said. The commentator said he often came across people who doubted
someone so young could possibly have personally experienced the
sensitivity expressed on the piano. It takes maturity therefore it
must have been a taught technique. Another discussion wast since many
classical composers also played their compositions could their
interpretation have been the final authority that others should seek
to emulate but can never surpass. The answer is certainly "not so."
A later musician can certainly become the body and soul with the music
and see in a piece of music something far beyond what the composer
himself could see. Joyce Yang is certainly the embodiment of music
genius and maturity far beyond her youth..
Now on TV we can see closes-ups a concert goer could never see. Her
sparkling expressive eyes, the gentle opening of her lips then a smile
of rapture, a pout, kitted brows as in "What interesting passage have
we here now?", the flow of her arms, flittering fingers, the sway of
her body and the bounce on her seat. Her playing was soft and gentle
yet precise and powerful without being overpowering. Just the right
touch to be all music without being concious of the musician or the
instrument. You don't have to see her at all to be fully immersed in
the imaginary Eden that her music evokes. That is how her string
quartets must have felt too for they played for her and she for them
in appreciation. It was in perfect harmony, without a trace of a
struggle for one to follow or to anticipate the other. Everything
just flowed smoothly as an organic whole. You must watch Miss Yang if
you ever get the chance.
I had no idea who she was but just managed to catch "Van Cliburn Piano
Competition" at the closing credits. A quick search turned up:-
Joyce Yang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joyce Yang (born 1986 in Seoul, Korea) is a classical music pianist.
She began playing piano at age four as her aunt's first piano student;
at age ten, she entered the Korean National Conservatory.[citation
needed] In 1997, Joyce moved to New York and began studying in
Juilliard's pre-college division.[citation needed] While in New York,
she attended Ward Melville High School.
She gained international renown during the 2005 Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition, in which she was awarded the silver
medal despite being the competition's youngest participant.[citation
needed] During the same competition, Joyce was also awarded both the
Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music,
as well as the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the Best Performance of
a New Work.[citation needed]
During the 2007-08 season, Joyce Yang is touring the United States,
playing concerts with a variety of symphony orchestras, including the
New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony,
and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.[citation needed]
.
- References:
- PBS: Joyce Yang an outstanding Concert Pianist
- From: PaPaPeng
- PBS: Joyce Yang an outstanding Concert Pianist
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