SARAH CHANG The Blade • February 4, 2017

Star violinist Chang keeps her flair fresh BY WAYNE F ANTHONY It is hard to believe when a virtuoso makes a world debut at 8 years of age that almost 30 years later they still have the ability to bring new life, light, and enchantment to yet another audience. That Sarah Chang still has “the gift” was readily apparent in last evening’s Toledo Symphony Classics Concert.

On the platform Maestro Giordano Bellincampi leads from the heart, and clearly the symphony members find in his passion verisimilitude.

They responded to his direction with nuance, sensitivity, and a willingness to take artistic risks. Clearly he has become one of their favorite guest conductors.

The program opened with Stravinsky’s complexly intricate ballet suite Pulcinella based on melodies by Pergolesi (and others). The chamberlike score received a clean performance from a reduced ensemble of Symphony players. From a slightly timid beginning it moved forward to dance with a terpsichorean lightness that belied the underlying difficulty of the score.

Chang joined the ensemble for an impassioned rendition of Tomaso Antonio Vitali’s “Chaconne.” The performance was riveting, demonstrating both her technical prowess and her clear understanding of line, movement, and energy. The work was exquisitely sculpted into an ever-growing effulgence that crept steadily forward toward a transfixing conclusion.

Gershwin’s perennial favorite, “An American in Paris,” opened the second half. Jazz, auto horns, blues, and swing rocked the Peristyle as Bellincampi encouraged the orchestra to boldly take risk after musical risk in his raucous, yet artfully crafted journey into post-WWI France. The work was a brilliant counterpoint to the artistically pensive first half.

Finally Chang returned for what proved to be the audience’s favorite work of evening, David Newman’s arrangement of music from Leonard Bernstein’s beloved musical West Side Story. The work is a pastiche of all the familiar tunes, allowing Chang to explore the gamut of her stylistic vocabulary from percussive Mambo riffs through the soaring romantic lines of “Maria” and beyond. The audience’s standing ovation was a clear testament to her continued reign as one of the world’s pre-eminent violinists.

SARAH CHANG Examiner.com • January 18, 2015

NJSO review: Winter Festival continues, Sarah Chang wows in Bernstein BY RICHARD CARTER Beautiful downtown Princeton’s characterful Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall saw the official start of violinist Sarah Chang’s two-week residency with New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as the second week of its Winter Festival got underway Friday, Jan. 16. Music DirectorJacques Lacombe led the second of three varied programs of works inspired by Shakespeare’s peerless output that transcends all borders. The composers represented were Czech Antonín Dvorák, Russian Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, English Frederick Delius, and Americans Samuel Barber andLeonard Bernstein. Three vocal soloists interpreted scenes from two operas, and featured guest Sarah Chang made magic with the violin.

The program opened with Dvorák’s “Othello Overture,” Op. 93 (1892), a gentle, steadily building work with a flashy, brilliant conclusion. Dvorák’s signature flute and woodwinds combined and interwove with shimmering string passages in this mostly quiet piece. Likewise, opening the concert’s second half, another calm orchestral interlude, “The Walk to the Paradise Garden,” from Frederick Delius’ 1907 opra, “A Village Romeo and Juliet,” started quietly but ended in a hushed cantilena that simply faded into nothingness. Maestro Lacombe guided a gorgeous reading of each work.

Lebanese-American tenor Roy Hage and Australian soprano Elena Perroni took the stage during Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet: Love Duet,” Op. Posth., based on themes from his “Romeo and Juliet: Fantasy-Overture” (completed and orchestrated by Sergei Taneyev). They brandished pure voices, which soared over the orchestra in more ardent moments and delicately cooed in more reflective passages. Both currently Master’s students at the Curtis Institute of Music, they each already have impressive stage experience and show promise of future greatness.

Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra” concluded the concert’s first half. The opera disappointed when it premiered in 1966 to inaugurate the Metropolitan Opera Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The composer revised it and, in 1968, excerpted two scenes for the title heroine: “Give Me Some Music” and “The Death of Cleopatra,” Op. 40 (1968). American soprano Heather Stebbins’ vibrant voice competed with the huge, voluptuous orchestra, which deployed seven percussionists playing 25 instruments, adding a Middle Eastern character to the music. Powerful stuff.

Finally the moment arrived for Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story: Suite,” which updates “Romeo and Juliet” for Tony and Maria, who inhabit Hell’s Kitchen, a Manhattan neighborhood. David Newman prepared a new arrangement specially for Sarah Chang, who in an interview described the piece as “iconic music from an iconic American film,” among her five all-time favorite movies. Though scarcely completed two weeks before, the soloist already has

Sarah Chang Examiner.com • January 18, 2015 page 2 of 2 assimilated the score, making it her own. At one with the practically pulsating orchestra, she looked just twice to Maestro Lacombe for entry cues.

Watching Sarah Chang perform is to observe a veritable dance. Indeed she did dance a few steps now and then in brief orchestral tutti, some written to specific dance rhythms. But while standing “still,” she reminds one of the ballet, elegantly swaying from side to side, at times leaning backwards with back fully arched, deploying her bow with sweeping muscular athleticism. Emotions clearly flashed across her face, particularly during the delicate “Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us)” passage. She obviously felt what she played, and this came through in her incredible sound.

Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall, dating from 1894, is quite an eyeful. Its Romanesque design ensures plenty of curves, from double sandstone columns and corkscrew stairways to the horseshoe-shaped seating area. A three-section Tiffany Glass tile mural covers the back of the stage. Latin inscriptions, carvings and bas relief portraits abound almost everywhere. Even if the concert had been a dud—and this concert wasn’t even in the same multiverse as a dud—audience members would still have enough to entertain the eyes. It’s great that NJSO regularly visits this venue.

SARAH CHANG Washington Post • May 18, 2014

Sarah Chang and National Philharmonic shine in thoughtful and passionate program BY JOAN REINTHALER The National Philharmonic’s program at Strathmore on Saturday began with melancholy and ended with joy — Richard Strauss’s elegiac “Metamorphosen” in the first half and the four concertos of Vivaldi’s effervescent “The Four Seasons” in the second.

Violinist Sarah Chang was the soloist in the Vivaldi, and pity the poor orchestral violin section that had to keep up with her as she tore through Vivaldi’s runs and arpeggios without breaking a sweat. Her touch was light, packed with energy and shaped with just enough rhythmic bend and sway to keep from sounding metronomic — and to keep the orchestra just a little off balance. Conductor Piotr Gajewski and his reduced-size string orchestra, maybe one rehearsal short of full agreement, sounded tentative in this company, which didn’t seem to faze Chang. She knew just how she wanted the music to go, and that’s how she played it. She danced with it, and the spirit of Vivaldi seemed to dance with her.

In true Strauss fashion, “Metamorphosen” is a vast monument to something. Some historians say it memorializes the destruction of Munich in World War II; others that it was Beethoven and his disavowal of Napoleon — or maybe both — that was in Strauss’s mind. In any case, Strauss uses the iambic descending scale from the second-movement funeral march of Beethoven’s Third Symphony and four other melodic fragments to fashion a huge arch that opens in quiet grief, builds to major chest-beating and ends quietly.

Strauss does all this with (for him) uncommon economy of both musical material and instrumental forces. It is scored for 23 solo strings, and the National Philharmonic turned in a performance that was thoughtful and passionate. There were times near the beginning when one or another of the themes struggled to be heard, and there was some disagreement about how to weight the iambic rhythm that pervaded the textures, but the overall effect was solemn and, at times, exalted.

SARAH CHANG

Napa Valley Register July 21, 2013

Chang, von Oeyen dazzle receptive Festival del Sole crowd BY L. PIERCE CARSON

CALISTOGA — Outstanding works by Johannes Brahms and Sergei Prokofiev were only part of the attraction that

had a sellout Festival del Sole crowd cheering at Calistoga’s Castello di Amorosa on Thursday night.

Performing those works were one of the best violinists in the world, Sarah Chang, and a remarkable young pianist,

Andrew von Oeyen.

A former child prodigy, Chang is a riveting soloist who began performing with a one-quarter-sized instrument, and

gradually moved up from there. Ten years old at the time of her 1990 debut with the New York Philharmonic

Orchestra, the youngster drew six standing ovations for her interpretations of several technically demanding classical

works.

Thursday night’s crowd might still be applauding had the artists not left the stage following a dazzling encore.

Chang served up Brahms’ fiery “Sonata No. 3 in D Minor” as if her life depended on it. She combined both

temperament and finesse while bringing out the mystery of this minor-key work, with von Oeyen appearing freely

spontaneous. The violinist’s many levels of both dynamics and vibrato were very much on display throughout as was

considerable body language.

She looked every bit the world-renowned artist, wearing a flamingo-pink sheath with flared kick pleats, which she

needed as she shifted about the stage, punctuating the music with rather rhythmic footwork.

The performers were well matched, with von Oeyen taking the lead in the third movement, save for some virtuosic

arpeggios from the violin. The fourth and final movement is the most virtuosic of all, including a shared tarantella. It

was a memorable reading of the work.

Prokofiev’s “Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major” is based on the composer’s own “Flute Sonata in D,” written in 1942 but

arranged for violin in 1943 when Prokofiev was living in a remote shelter for Soviet artists during World War II. His

close friend, violinist David Oistrakh, asked that he turn the work into a violin sonata. It went on to become more

popular than the flute version.

Chang underscored the flutelike melody of the first movement and the impish nature of the ensuing Scherzo, which

crackled with rhythmic vitality.

The wild abandon we’ve come to expect in Prokofiev’s works was present in the finale. Chang and von Oeyen brought

it all home in this gutsy, irresistibly spirited movement.

Violinist and pianist sent the audience home smiling, following an outstanding encore, a spirited tango from the pen of

Carlos Gardel.

SARAH CHANG

What's on in CapeTown June 13, 2013

Review: Sarah Chang in Concert BY ESTHER LIM

To know that a fellow human being could triumph in such a way was a ground-breaking moment for the ecstatic

audience at Sara Chang’s first performance in Africa.

Laying out the groundwork prior to the appearance of Chang, one of the world’s greatest violinists, was the Cape

Philharmonic under the direction of the Conductor Theodore Kuchar. Kuchar’s international career, now bringing him

to him 10th collaboration with Chang, is often attributed to his meticulously inspired conducting style. With the

conductor so attentive to every last member, the orchestra was in tiptop shape as they danced through Rossini’s

sprightly Overture to “The Italian Girl in Algiers” as well as the celebration of Italy’s picturesque landscape and culture

in Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 4 in A major,” Op. 90. Sibelius’ “Finlandia” proved to be just the right preface to

his famously challenging violin concerto, which was the focal piece for the evening. By the time the orchestra reached

the stately and melodic “Finlandia Hymn” in its grandiose double-time, full-volume coda, we were sitting straight in

our chairs with our senses heightened, almost to a point of reverence.

It was then that Sarah Chang claimed the stage. A onetime child prodigy now at age 32 with over two decades of

international acclaim to her name, Chang has not stopped being in the limelight since she first debuted with the New

York Philharmonic at the age of eight. She performs regularly as a soloist with the world’s top orchestras—the London

Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic, to name just a few—and is also active as

a chamber musician whose collaborations include Yo-Yo Ma and the late Isaac Stern. With 20 years of well-received

recordings interspersed throughout a terrifically packed tour schedule (often prearranged two or three years in

advance), Chang has shown no sign of slowing down since her early days.

It seems particularly fitting, then, for her to present the “Violin Concerto in D minor,” Op. 47, which was dedicated by

Sibelius to the Hungarian “wunderkind” Ferenc von Vecsey who performed the concerto at age 13. Lest this detail

tempt us to think lightly of the piece, it should be noted here that the work is one of the most technically demanding

violin concertos of all time, and Vecsey himself was not able to fully master Sibelius’ score at the time.

Chang, however, not only demonstrated indubitable technical mastery of the piece but also brought a strikingly mature

sound to augment its intensity. As the only concerto that Sibelius wrote, “Concerto in D minor” is comprised of

woeful, broad melodies and violently virtuosic solos that reflect the composer’s torment: the violin had been his first

love, but his inability to excel at it due to a late start and inadequate tutelage had driven him to give it up altogether.

The piece, in a sense, carries both his gloom as well as the radiance of what could have been, and in the hands of Chang

it positively wept with poignancy.

As she unfurled the first movement, it was as though Chang was playing as duet with herself, layering rich golden tones

on her del Gesù which by all accounts sounded like two violins playing in tandem. Bringing the fiery end of the

“Allegro Moderato” movement to a close with a flourish—a full-arm swing of the bow here, a stomp of the foot

there—she then eased us into the lush notes of her lower register in the lyrical “Adagio di Molto.” The way she freely

utilized the physical space around her was mirrored by Kucher’s traversing the four corners of his podium, the

orchestra conveying a fine range of tones as the two led them through the equally-voiced, alternating melodic passages.

Sarah Chang

What's on in CapeTown June 13, 2013

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Finally, in the cathartic “Allegro” movement we witnessed a battle in which Chang, wielding her instrument like a

weapon, gave an explosive presentation of violin acrobatics in a non-stop barrage. Here, even the orchestra members

sat staring, enthralled by her virtuosity, so much so that I feared they would miss their next cues. As the concerto came

to a heart-stopping close, it’s no surprise that the ensuing ovation required no less than seven reappearances on Chang’s

part to acknowledge the elated crowd.

SARAH CHANG

The Star-Ledger April 27, 2013

Sarah Chang plays Bruch with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra BY RONNI REICH

Sarah Chang leaned back, a platform heel kicking out from under her emerald green gown as she tore through a

furiously spiraling run of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Her seemingly endless bravado suited the music excellently

— and her precision was stunning.

Chang’s performance was gratifyingly assured. The concerto is a standard piece of music, but Chang made it sound as

tailor-made for her as her bold, formfitting dress.

As the guest soloist with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under music director Jacques Lacombe, Chang gave a

thoroughly impressive and entertaining performance Thursday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center that showed

off her virtuosity.

Chang, who made her debut with the New York Philharmonic when she was 8, showed her authority in the concerto’s

moody opening and its gypsy-tinged finale. She maintained the music’s exciting initial build-up as she seamlessly

integrated trills and double-stops and impeccably dispatched vigorous passages. Lacombe and the NJSO matched her

energy and strong pulse with playing that was taut and rich in character.

Chang’s presence was dramatic and her approach often muscular, with a confident sense of attack. She also employed a

lush sound in her lower range, crystalline top notes and a nice focus in the work’s lyrical portions.

A less congenial fit for the orchestra was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, "Romantic."

Lacombe and the musicians delivered the work’s big thrills: the ascents into huge, shattering climaxes, the tense

chromatic undulations, the rich brass chords. At the outset of the finale, rumbling timpani led a passage that had sound

of such depth it seemed almost able to bore through the stage floor.

Still, the requirements of the work did not play to the NJSO’s strengths. The prominent horn part, in particular, was

inconsistently played, and there were tone quality and intonation issues throughout the brass section.

Lacombe also sometimes seemed to push through some of the lighter or calmer music between its epic heights — most

notably an airy, somewhat pastoral violin-led section within the first movement — rather than play up contrasts.

Originally composed in 1874, the score was subsequently revised multiple times. Lacombe chose the 1878-80 version.

The concert also included a fluent rendition of the "Good Friday Spell" from Wagner’s "Parsifal." The program will be

repeated tonight at the State Theatre and tomorrow at NJPAC.

SARAH CHANG

Cincinnati.com April 5, 2013

Sarah Chang wows in Barber; CSO superb in Dvorak BY JANELLE GELFAND

Violinist Sarah Chang, a former prodigy who made her professional debut at age 8, is still remarkable after more than

two decades on the concert stage. And happily for the concert-going public, she is still exploring new repertoire. On

Thursday, Chang, 32, was soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the Barber Violin Concerto, a piece that

is new for her this season. She gave it a brilliant and highly individual performance.

Czech Republic-born conductor Jakub Hrusa, 31, music director and chief conductor of the Prague Philharmonia, led

the program, which included Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6 and Smetana’s “Sarka.” Remember Hrusa’s name; there’s a

reason why Gramophone magazine dubbed him “on the verge of greatness.”

In the evening’s first half, Chang brought extraordinary finesse to the long, lyrical themes of Samuel Barber’s neo-

romantic concerto, as her violin wove seamlessly in and out of the orchestral texture. But she also displayed a great

deal of intensity in some moments, and her big vibrato lent depth and emotion to her phrasing.

In a rose-pink mermaid gown, the violinist strolled as she played, arched her back as she reached for a high note, and

swayed along in the orchestra’s tutti passages.

In the slow movement, the sound she projected on her Guarneri del Gesu violin (which she received from her mentor,

Isaac Stern) was stunning. Her playing was breathtaking in the finale, a lightning-quick perpetuum mobile.

Hrusa was an excellent partner, at times slightly too heavy for her sound but careful not to cover it in the tricky finale.

Among orchestral soloists, oboist Dwight Parry’s solo in the slow movement was magical.

Hrusa’s leadership in Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6 in D Major was authoritative, clear and engaging, and the result was

rich in Bohemian warmth. Although this symphony is not as familiar as the “New World,” it deserves to be heard more

often.

Dvorak’s wonderful themes, based on folk tunes from his homeland, flowed one after another, each shaped with care.

Details popped out, and the conductor also had an ear for atmosphere, from delicate to moments of sweeping grandeur.

He propelled tempos energetically, yet always with a natural feeling of spontaneity. The scherzo, a “furiant,” was

earthy and vigorous, but not overwrought.

The musicians were responsive to his every gesture, and delivered a memorable performance.

The program opened with a lesser-known gem, “Sarka,” from Smetana’s “Ma Vlast.” Written to a legend about love

and revenge, it emerged like a mini-tone poem, and Hrusa was a vivid storyteller. The color and sweep of the strings

were impressive, and out of the atmosphere emerged a haunting clarinet solo (Benjamin Freimuth).

Go to this one.

SARAH CHANG

Seen and Heard International October 25, 2012

Impressive Barber from Sarah Chang and Dresden’s Other

Orchestra BY MICHAEL COOKSON

The concert was being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

This Bridgwater Hall International Concert Series continues to be a veritable treasure trove

of musical entertainment. Tonight’s visit to

Manchester of the Dresden Philharmonic was quite an event for me. Founded in 1870 the

orchestra is one of the oldest in Germany. In

truth the Dresden Philharmonic tends to live in

the shadow of the world famous Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, a much older orchestra.

The prospect of hearing renowned American

violinist Sarah Chang playing the Samuel Barber concerto was another enticing prospect.

Michael Sanderling has been in the role of chief

conductor of the Dresdner Philharmonie just over a year and opened the Bridgwater Hall concert

with the Brahms Variations on a theme by

Haydn. More than a mere curtain raiser this is a highly attractive masterwork with the B-flat major theme an Andante

based on a ‘St. Antony Chorale’ attributed to Haydn with eight variations and a finale. I was struck by Sanderling’s wide dynamics in an unforced and stylish, yet gloriously compelling performance that seemed to reveal itself so

naturally.

Next the magnificent violin concerto by Samuel Barber written in 1939 for Iso Briselli the Jewish/Odessa born émigré. Briselli was enthusiastic about the first two movements but disappointed with the very short third movement Finale

feeling that it was not substantial enough. The often made assertion that Briselli claimed that the Finale was too

difficult to play has been refuted. Wearing a glorious gold off the shoulder gown that seemed far easier to play the violin in than to walk in Chang made a stunning impression. In an interview I had with the soloist prior to the concert

Chang explained how much she adores playing the Barber concerto, an American work of which she has become a

champion. Crammed with lyrical melodies I haven’t heard the Barber played with as much individuality and fiery

passion as the animated Chang conveyed. I’m sure it was an interpretation that would divide opinion but I loved the heavy vibrato and brazen amounts of late-Romantic fervour that bought the concerto to life. Chang’s violin, a

Guarnerius Del Gesu, Cremona from 1717, emitted a sweet, light tone that struggled to reach all corners of the hall;

not an uncommon occurrence for many violin soloists in the Bridgewater acoustics. Having just listened to the BBC iPlayer I can report that Chang’s Guarneri fared much better in the live BBC Radio 3 broadcast of the concert. It was

Sarah Chang

Seen and Heard International October 25, 2012

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exhausting just watching the energy that Chang expended in the brief

Presto, Finale a furious moto perpetuo that only took just over 4

minutes to perform. Oh yes, the impressive oboe solo that commences the Andante was played with such melting beauty.

After suitable refreshment the Bridgewater audience was treated to

the much loved and enduring repertoire staple Dvořák’s Symphony

No. 9 in E minor, Op.95 ‘From the New World’. Sanderling gathered together his sections with assurance and commitment providing a

performance of natural energy that felt a notch or two above the

standard of playing this work often produces. Sanderling’s convincing interpretation eliminated any unessential temperament

and surface gloss leaving a ‘New World Symphony’ that sounded

freshly minted and judiciously paced. I loved the freshly sprung rhythms and the passion and power of the opening movement. The

haunting pathos of the captivating Largo featured the reedy cor

anglais on such splendid form. Highly impressive was Sanderling’s

balancing of the orchestral textures and tempi in the Scherzo, and the bold and forthright Finale contained substantial forward momentum

combined with compelling drama.

Throughout the concert the well rounded Dresden brass blazed persuasively and the unified string sound contained an attractive bloom. Delightfully pleasing to the ear the woodwind section was kept extremely busy with the enviable

combination of the oboe and flute principals deserving significant praise. Playing with impeccable rapport under

Sanderling’s baton the Dresden Philharmonic came off brilliantly in this concert.

SARAH CHANG

CNN May 7, 2012

Musician's passionate journey through Buenos Aires BY GEORGE WEBSTER

Editor's note: Part culture show, part travel show,

over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the

creative world on a journey of discovery to a location

of their choice. There, they will learn from a different

culture and create something new inspired by their

experience. Watch the show every Monday,

Wednesday and Friday from April 9 to May 18, during

Connect The World, from 20:00 GMT.

(CNN) -- Since her debut with the New York

Philharmonic at the age of eight, Sarah Chang has

grown through the weight of expectation to become

one of the world's great violinists.

Now aged 31, Chang was born in Philadelphia to a composer and music teacher of Korean descent. Chang first dabbled

with the piano at the age of three, before opting for the violin a year later. By five she had been accepted into New

York's prestigious Juilliard School for Performing Arts.

By her own acknowledgment, the world of grand orchestras and opera houses that she has so long inhabited can be

"very formal" and "exclusive." This perhaps goes some way to explain her choice of destination for her "Fusion

Journey" challenge: Buenos Aires.

Here, in the hot-blooded Argentinean capital, she would meet with local band "Orquesta Tipica Andariega," to learn

first-hand the sensual and mysterious art of tango.

See more Fusion Journeys

During her visit, Chang was challenged to produce a fusion of sound that blended the traditions of Western classical

music with tango's emotionally raw and folksy heritage. She says that the process has given her performance a new-

found sense of intimacy that she's carried ever since.

In her own words, Chang tells the story of her Fusion Journey.

Sarah Chang: I've been trained as a classical violinist my entire life. It's all about structure, all about technique. It's

very much a polished profession. But tango music, although it has some classical elements, is very sexy and rough and,

in a way, from the earth.

Sarah Chang

CNN May 7, 2012

page 2 of 2

When you walk along the streets of Buenos Aires, fun is in the air. You see children with barely anything on their feet

playing soccer, and there is music on every corner. They are playing all sorts of Latin sounds; they're all dancing and

drinking; they're enjoying life; they are loving life.

One of the cornerstones of tango is definitely the dancing, so I first met up with dance instructor Nora Schvartz.

Now, I'm not really a dancer. I'm a very physical performer when I'm on stage, but of course tango is a completely

different thing to thrusting around when you're performing as a violinist.

I learned that the best tango dancers move not just with their legs and arms, but from their guts. That's the sign of a true

art form, and it's the source of so much beauty, so much soul and passion.

Even though I absolutely cannot dance -- just watch the footage! -- I always thought that to experience the whole

picture, you really have to open up your vulnerabilities, and sort of take that risk.

Tango is -- in a sense -- imperfect ... albeit beautifully imperfect. It's not about being always metronomically on time,

it's about spontaneity and freedom.

I've worked, of course, with a piano and an orchestra before -- but never with a band. All of a sudden I find myself

rehearsing with the "Orquesta Tipica Andariega," an extremely talented local tango group. So there I was, playing

songs I'd never played before, alongside instruments I'd never heard before, with a group I'd never met before -- it was

thrilling!

The piece we chose for our fusion was by Carlos Gardel -- the biggest name in the history of tango. The tune itself is

very famous -- it's used in all these movies, you name it, any famous tango scene. But as far as I know, there is no

version for a band with a solo violinist, so I asked a composer friend of mine to make an arrangement for us.

I was really thrilled with the result. We performed it in this intimate little club and it felt so immediate. Everyone was

there, drinking wine, dancing, looking so happy. There were no rigid rules, none of this "clap here, oh you have to be

quiet here." Instead, the audience were whistling and yelling and clapping along -- it felt like they were right up there

with us.

Literally, if I just stretched my arm, I could touch them, they were so close. That sort of intimacy, that sort of physical

closeness, the fact that they were dancing when we were playing, I just thought was so beautiful.

"Fusions" can often turn out badly -- I can think of some fusion cuisine that I wish I could forget! But when each side

brings just the right balance of their experience, their culture and personality, then I think it can be magical -- and the

only way you know it has worked is when everyone has a smile on their face.

Classical music is one of the world's longest-standing traditional forms of music-making out there -- and I don't think it

will, or should, change over night. There is a sort of purity in what classical musicians do that I cherish very much and

want to preserve.

But the big thing that I really took from this experience is that sense of connecting with the audience. Quite often, in

grand concert halls where everyone is wearing elegant ball gowns and black tails -- that kind of old-Hollywood glamor

-- it can feel like there is a big distance between the audience and the performers, a sense of "look, but don't touch."

But with Argentinean tango, it's the opposite. They are saying "please touch, please come into and share my world."

Now, every concert that I do, I try to utilize that, I try to connect with every single last person in the balcony on an

emotional and personal level.

SARAH CHANG

Montreal Gazette March 1, 2012

Violinist Chang: Prodigy to pro, bypassing crack-up BY MICHAEL RODDY

(Reuters) - The closest violinist Sarah Chang, who made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age eight, can

recall having needed a break from it all came when she was 16 -- but even then she had to wait two years to get it.

"The only time I just literally sat down and said, 'Okay, I need a break' was when I was about 16, and I actually said

this to my parents and they immediately got on the phone with my manager to say I needed a sabbatical," Chang told

Reuters in an interview in London before heading off to China on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Valery Gergiev.

"This was a time of SATs (American scholastic tests) and college applications and the prom and you're like starting to

get interested in boys and lots of things, so you need a little bit of normalcy, right?"

She got it, but with strings attached. Given that violin soloists are booked into concert halls years in advance, Chang, now 30, didn't get her break until she was 18 -- but she did get it, and loved every minute of it.

"It ended up being like a month and half but it was a month and a half of just unbelievable pleasure, like I did nothing,

it was so great. I watched lots of bad TV, I ate everything in sight, I didn't have to worry about fitting into a dress the next evening -- and this was just when reality TV shows were starting off. That was fun."

So Chang found her way out of the pressure-cooker life that is the world of the child prodigy, and which throughout

history has left a legacy of broken careers and deep emotional scars (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may even have symbolically killed off his dad Leopold in his opera Don Giovanni to get back at his pushy and controlling papa).

As a person of Korean-American heritage, Chang has gone on to do regular tours in Korea, including one to North

Korea in 2002 that left a lasting impression, particularly when she managed to stay behind at the hotel, against all the

rules, and was taking a shower when the electricity and the water were both switched off -- because there was not supposed to be anyone in the hotel.

"I went over to the bed where there's a phone to call reception, but there's no line connecting it -- it's like a prop, it's like

a toy, a prop," she said, still seemingly stunned by the chicanery of it all -- though luckily her father was in the adjoining room to rush down to the desk and get the water switched back on.

Here's what else Chang had to say about what it's like making the transition from prodigy to pro, and about the musical

scene in the Koreas, north and south:

Q: When and how and why and at what age did you officially stop being the child prodigy whose mom dressed you up

in a frilly red dress for the cover of your debut album (Sarah Chang, EMI) and become the adult violinist who tours all

over the world and still makes CDs (Bruch, Brahms Violin Concertos, Chang with the Dresdner Philharmonie

conducted by Kurt Masur, EMI)?

A: "It changes pretty quickly because people get tired of the child prodigy thing. You see this tiny eight-year-old in a

pink puffy dress and mary janes and she's cute as a button and they go 'Ahhh', whatever she plays they go 'Ahhh'

because she's so young. But then the whole game of this business that we're in is that you strive for actual relationships within the musical community. It's not about going to London once and having a great debut, it's about longevity and

Sarah Chang

Montreal Gazette March 1, 2012

page 2 of 2

it's about having relationships with those conductors and those orchestras and going back and really having musical

relationships with them. So they invite you the first time and you do your debut and they all love you, but then when

they invite you back the next visit has to be better than the previous visit and the tenth visit has to be better than the ninth."

Q: We've all heard quite a lot about the musical scene in China, and about Lang Lang and his inspiring 40 million

Chinese children to study piano, but we know less about Korea, north or south. What is the music scene there?

A: I go every year (to South Korea) and the music scene is pretty phenomenal. Almost every child in Korea plays an instrument. It's a typical Asian thing. They expect you to do well in school and somebody sticks an instrument in your

hands at the age of 3 or 4, whether they expect you to become a musician or not....I go and play concerts and there are

so many kids in the audience and I get it, the mothers drive them there, but still they're there."

Q: And the North? Would you go again?

A: I wanted to talk to some of the North Korean musicians but there was no opportunity. Would I do it again? I would,

I think we live in a very privileged sort of world and not just because I am Korean but because I think it's so easy to get lost in what you do and misconstrue your own career in the big picture. I think there are so many issues out there and

exposure is a good thing."

SARAH CHANG

Toronto Star February 16, 2012

TSO review: Sarah Chang, John Storgaards electrify the Toronto

Symphony Orchestra BY JOHN TERAUDS

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

**** (out of 4)

With violinist Sarah Chang. John Storgaards, conductor. Repeats Feb. 18. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-593-7769 (tso.ca)

There was electricity in the air along with the music during the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s entire performance on

Thursday night at Roy Thomson Hall.

Between visiting Finnish conductor John Storgaards, violin soloist Sarah Chang, the orchestra’s own fine playing and

an intense program of works by Jean Sibelius, Dmitri Shostakovich and Ludwig van Beethoven, this turned into an

ideal night at the symphony. All the pieces came together to inspire goosebumps at every turn of the score.

Even Beethoven’s popular Symphony No. 5, heard so many times in so many different ways, sounded fresh and

recharged, as if it had just spent a few weeks on a balmy beach.

Storgaards, who has taken on new duties as the principal conductor of the BBC Symphony, made his Toronto debut on

Thursday night. He made such a fine show of his first concert that he should join the roster of great repeat visitors on the TSO’s podium.

He was supremely in charge of the orchestra, managing to extract a full, rich sound that pulsed with life — sometimes

even menace.

Storgaards dug into the Beethoven as a hungry child into a jar of freshly baked chocolate cookies. He was equally

wilful as he accompanied Chang in Shostakovich’s dark Violin Concerto No. 1 — making the orchestra an ideal

counterweight to her tightly wound performance.

Chang can switch her sound from silken to steely in the blink of an eye — an ability she used to striking dramatic effect in the concerto. One could have heard a cellphone drop during the long, treacherous cadenza that bridges the third and

the final movements of the piece.

Even the gentle opening work on the program, Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela, floated on the darkly shimmering undertones the composer used to depict the bird that sings on the dark waters of the afterlife in the great Finnish epic,

Kalevala.

TSO English horn player Cary Ebli embodied the swan with uncommon grace, while Storgaards’ clear-headed reading of the score highlighted all of Sibelius’s tricks of orchestration.

The whole made for memorable concertgoing. Catch Saturday’s repeat performance, if you can.

SARAH CHANG

Boston Globe October 18, 2011

Chang, von Oeyen a powerful pairing BY JEFFREY GANTZ

At: Symphony Hall, Sunday

It’s not unusual for star instrumentalists to hype the “equal relationship’’ they have with their recital partners or fellow performers. But in their Celebrity Series of Boston recital program Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall, violinist Sarah

Chang and pianist Andrew von Oeyen were equals in every way. They talked to each other, they listened to each other,

they gave each other space.

Chang, of course, is the star, a child prodigy who now, at 30, is one of the world’s premier violinists. Yet the pieces she

and von Oeyen chose - the Scherzo Johannes Brahms wrote for the collaborative “F-A-E’’ Sonata, his Violin Sonata

No. 3, Christopher Theofanidis’s “Fantasy,’’ and Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata in A - showcased the piano as much as

the violin.

Gangly and tousle-haired and hunching over his instrument, von Oeyen looked like the reincarnation of Van Cliburn,

and when Chang bent toward him, as she did frequently, you could see him listening to her out of the corner of his ear.

She would lean back, or kick a foot, or dance from side to side; she even hopped. All that was reflected in the tone of her Guarneri: warm, pungent, by turns romantically intense and meditatively mellow, never thin or glossy.

There was actually too much piano in the Scherzo, but that was Brahms’s fault (he was only 20 when he wrote the

piece) and not von Oeyen’s. The later (1888), full-throated Violin Sonata No. 3 balanced the violin’s smoldering Gypsy yearning against the piano’s galloping runs and heavy chording. The Franck started in a more delicate vein of wistful

recollection that erupted into stormy rapture and perhaps reproach before a nocturne-like truce was called and a playful,

“top that’’ finale ensued. In between, American composer Theofanidis’s “Fantasy’’ was a harmless, enjoyable bit of

movie-music comfort food.

There were encores: Edward Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour,’’ a violin-and-piano setting of Carlos Gardel’s tango “Por una

Cabeza,’’ and the “Air on the G String’’ from J.S. Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite. Chang and von Oeyen were having

such a lively conversation, it was a shame they had to stop.

SARAH CHANG

Grand Rapids Press October 14, 2011

Glamorous, graceful violinist Sarah Chang wows audience as St.

Cecilia Music Center's Great Artist BY JEFFREY KACZMARCZYK

GRAND RAPIDS – When someone has compiled a quarter century in business, you normally say they're about half

way through their career.

Violinist Sarah Chang has been in the limelight for more than 22 years, and when she steps on stage, you'd swear she doesn't look a day over 30.

You'd be right, too.The Korean-American violinist, who made her debut at age 8 with the New York Philharmonic, is

just 30 years old.

Though when you hear Chang play, you start wondering if she's as young as she looks.

Chang was in Grand Rapids on Thursday for St. Cecilia Music Center's Great Artist Series gala, a series that has

brought the most notable of names in music to town.

Many of the artists – pianist Earl Wilde, singer Sherrill Milnes, crooner Tony Bennett -- have been at the apex of their

careers, if not beyond.

Chang, the second youngest-ever St. Cecilia Great Artist, remains an A-list player who wowed an audience of some

500 with pianist Andrew Von Oeyen plus music by Johannes Brahms and Cesar Franck.

Chang is a complete package as a player -- technically assured, colorfully expansive, subtly probing, boldly

commanding. Von Oeyen has a Lisztian heft at the piano.

Coincidentally, Von Oeyen appeared here in October 2005 and Chang the following month, both with the Grand Rapids Symphony in DeVos Hall.

In some respects, two great artists were on stage in St. Cecilia Music Center's Royce Auditorium.

Recitals are supposed to be shared ventures, collaborations between equals, a meeting of minds in music, an ideal not

always achieved.

Classmates at The Juilliard School, only a year apart in age, Chang and Von Oeyen couldn't look more different. She

appeared in two exquisite gowns, one teal and shirred, one gold, black and sparkly. He in some semblance of a dark

coat and slacks, no tie, rumpled hair, cordovan shoes matching nothing.

But the performed precisely, passionately, and, most importantly, authoritatively, not so much as two people, but as

both halves of a brain or two sides of the heart, working together, knowing nothing else.

Their program of two works by Brahms, a sonata by Franck and a Fantasy by contemporary composer Christopher Theofanidis, is one they have been playing for a couple of seasons now.

It's hard to say what connects these works other than they like playing them.

Sarah Chang

Grand Rapids Press October 14, 2011

page 2 of 2

The pair have the contrapuntal nuances of Brahms' youthful Sonatensatz and his mature Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op.

108, honed precisely.

Von Oeyen played with the lid fully open on the Steinway, and Chang easily was powerful enough to match his volume.

Theofanidis' Fantasy is an arrangement of the middle movement of his Violin Concerto commissioned and written

specifically for Chang.

The composer's loving attention to detail is evident in the eclectic blend of romanticism, impressionism and modernism. Chang in turn plays it with ringing, triumphant joy, supported by Von Oeyen's resolute accompaniment.

The cyclical give and take of Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano, unmatched fluency and fluidity, led to an

unprecedented outburst of applause by the audience at the end of the second movement with two more yet to come. As enthusiastic as that was, the reaction following the fourth and final movement was greater yet.

Chang and Von Oeyen gave back what they got with not one, but two encores. First an elegant reading of Edward

Elgar's Salut d'Amour, followed by Carlos Gardel's sizzling tango, “Por una Cabeza.”

Only one other musician – violinist Itzhak Perlman -- has made two appearances as St. Cecilia's Great Artist. Chang

has plenty of time left to become the second.

SARAH CHANG

Napa Valley Register July 23, 2011

Celebrated violinist nearly steals Festival del Sole show BY L. PIERCE CARSON

Korean/American violinist Sarah Chang is acclaimed the world over as one of classical music’s most captivating and

gifted performers. One of the most remarkable violinists of any generation, she has matured into a young artist whose musical insight, technical virtuosity and emotional range continue to make audiences sit up and take notice.

Appearing in the music capitals of Asia, Europe and the Americas, she has collaborated with most major orchestras,

including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony to name but a few.

Midweek, Chang was in the Napa Valley appearing as guest soloist with the Russian National Orchestra at Castello di

Amorosa, one of the sold-out events at this year’s Festival del Sole.

The first of two appearances at this year’s festival, the Wednesday night program had Chang featured as soloist for a new orchestral suite based on Leonard Bernstein’s enduring 1950’s Broadway score for “West Side Story.”

Debates aside about whether or not the soloist’s talents were wasted on an urban pastiche retooled from dance numbers

and haunting love songs from a great American musical, Chang, in a dazzling 15-minute performance, all but stole the show.

That’s not to say the Russian National Orchestra was laying down on the job, or that the American debut of Israeli

conductor Omer Wellber was just so much chopped liver. Far from it.

It’s just that Chang is a stunning musician, as easy on the eye as she is on the ear. For the second performance of film

composer David Newman’s “West Side Story Suite” anywhere, Chang could do no wrong.

Fiddling away as the 61-piece orchestra rumbled through the mambo machinations of the “Dance at the Gym,” Chang,

clad in a fiery red, skintight sheath, seemed right at home. Her violin cried with the heartache of “I Have A Love,” reinforced the ageless beauty in “Maria” and “Tonight” and underscored the promise of “Somewhere.”

Who knows? The Jets and Sharks might have called a truce if Chang had been added to the roll call under the freeway.

Wellber and the Russians barreled through the Bernstein-based score like true Broadway veterans, although at one point the included vestiges of “Cool” sounded as if they’d been run through the borscht belt.

It appeared Chang enjoyed the performance as much as the audience did. After all, if Joshua Bell can play Bernstein on

Broadway, why not Sarah Chang? A standing ovation followed the performance, of course.

A program change had Wellber and the Russian National Orchestra opening Wednesday night’s program with

Prokofiev’s “Symphony No. 1 in D Major.” Dubbed “the classical symphony,” this was the composer’s deliberate

attempt to write with 18th century grace and wit, much as Mozart did. Many feel it’s an unflawed masterpiece. I must

admit it’s difficult not to fall in love with its serene beauty.

This was a most persuasive reading, finely shaped by Wellber. The violins were exquisitely gentle at their poised entry

in the Larghetto, yet spirited in the outer movements. The finale proved to be mercurial.

Sarah Chang

Napa Valley Register July 23, 2011

page 2 of 2

Beethoven’s lyrical “Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major” is a winning work, although much more modest than the

composer’s ground-breaking Third.

For some reason, this gentle, reflective symphony is the least played of the nine.

With the setting sun, the acoustics at Castello di Amorosa seemed to dramatically improve. Warm but not overly

romantic, Wellber led the articulate Russian orchestra through a splendid performance.

From the initial downbeat, the work was immediately full of tension; the Allegro vigorous without being over-driven,

and the rapt Adagio executed beautifully. We were able to enjoy the sprightliness of the Scherzo, with noted delicacy from wind and strings carrying us into the finale, full of energy and fire.

An exceptional conductor. An outstanding orchestra. A tremendous soloist. All came together for another first-rate

Festival del Sole program at the castle.

SARAH CHANG

Washington Post April 29, 2011

Kurt Masur leads NSO, Sarah Chang in a concert simply to be

enjoyed BY ANNE MIDGETTE

Kurt Masur is 83 years old. He has always been a big bear of a man — “Elephant” was his nickname and his totem

animal, though there was more of the bulldog than the elephant in the tenacious set of his jaw, the uncompromising

eyes. Walking out to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, he stepped carefully, with a measured

tread that betokened a slight unsteadiness. His solidity has yielded to thinness, so that when he now conducts, his habit

of using his whole body, moving with the music, makes him seem to sway like a sapling in a strong wind.

Don’t be fooled. Conductors who are really frail conduct sitting down. Masur stayed on his feet in the Kennedy Center

Concert Hall for nearly two solid hours of strong German music: Mendelssohn, Bruch and Brahms. The NSO rose to

meet him with so much goodwill that its playing took on a veritable Central European accent. Mendelssohn’s “Ruy

Blas” Overture, which the orchestra hasn’t played for more than 65 years, sounded uncharacteristically warm and

lighthearted and robust: not earthshaking music, but very likable music that became worthwhile in this account of it.

Much is made of artists’ late styles; Masur’s late style may simply be the ability to let a moment, or a concert, be

enjoyed.

Contributing to that enjoyment considerably was Sarah Chang, now 30, performing the piece — Bruch’s first, and by

far best-known, violin concerto — that she played for her Juilliard audition when she was 6 years old. The truism about

child prodigies is that they tend to fade from view as they get older: Chang, who made her debut with the New York

Philharmonic at the age of 9, is one of a whole generation of musicians — Midori, Joshua Bell, Evgeny Kissin — who

has given that truism the lie. She certainly brought a wonderful flair to the Bruch from the very first bars. Often

described as a conversation between soloist and orchestra, these opening lines revealed a soloist who actually had

something to say. She didn’t try to make a case for the piece as being anything greater than it is, but she brought out all

of its lovable singing qualities while doing it the honor of taking it seriously, limning it in amber tones, only giving way

a little bit to a manic impulse at the very end. Masur, who has been playing with Chang for years (he’s been called her

“musical godfather”), and the orchestra did a beautiful job of accompanying her, particularly in the way the other

instruments kept chiming in seamlessly in the second movement.

The last time the NSO played Brahms’s First Symphony was in a special concert arranged as a kind of audition or

getting-to-know-you session in 2008 with the conductor who ultimately became the orchestra’s next music director,

Christoph Eschenbach, and you could feel the electricity crackling. Masur is a very different kind of conductor. Where

Eschenbach’s heart tends to be on his sleeve, Masur’s is well contained within his silvery Nehru blouse. Masur is not a

conductor of big or graphic gestures: He keeps his hands close to and in front of his body, and lets the music talk.

Rather than telegraphing excitement, he allows it to grow out of a kind of intimacy. The palpable earnestness of this

symphony seemed, initially, to present a contrast to the first half of the evening; there were moments in the first

movement that even verged on sluggishness. But the music kept blossoming, without too much fuss on the conductor’s

part, as if he expected it and the players to keep on responding to the intentions in his spare gestures. Masur and the

NSO — points to the oboes and the trombones — ended up presenting a subdued elegance that had its own quiet

authority, and quiet poignance.

Sarah Chang

New York Times October 21, 2010

A Penchant for Bruch (Since She Was Only 5) BY STEVE SMITH

What a difference a week, a few days and a change of scenery make. This month the violinist Sarah Chang was

scheduled to perform Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. When that ensemble’s

musicians called a strike, Ms. Chang announced a recital, proceeds from which would be donated to the players’ pension fund. But faced with what the orchestra’s management called threats, Ms. Chang canceled.

It surely must have been a relief for Ms. Chang then, when she came to the Carnegie Hall stage on Tuesday night

during a concert by the KBS Symphony Orchestra, the house ensemble of the Korean Broadcasting System in Seoul.

The concert, part of a brief tour that will also see the orchestra performing at the United Nations on Friday and at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Sunday, was presented free and drew a large, appreciative audience dominated by

Korean-Americans.

Ms. Chang clearly has special feelings for the Bruch concerto. Last year she issued a striking performance on an EMI Classics CD recorded with Kurt Masur and the Dresden Philharmonic. She is playing the work widely this season,

including performances with Mr. Masur in Washington. Nostalgia may have something to do with it: Ms. Chang played

the Bruch concerto in her Juilliard School audition when she was 5.

On Tuesday she played with her customary technical precision. But her emotional investment made it all sound unusually personal. You heard it in the finely shaded dynamics and steadily mounting intensity of her opening

statement, in the ineffable sweetness of the Adagio and in the controlled incandescence of the finale.

The orchestra, conducted by Shinik Hahm, offered warm, sympathetic support, with especially fine playing from the principal winds.

“Heroes,” written in 2002 by the Korean-American composer Jeeyoung Kim for a World Cup match in Suwon, South

Korea, was an efficient and attractive calling card. Heard in a new revision billed as a premiere, the piece moved from gentle wind melodies through flowing string passages to end with rousing brass fanfares and clattering percussion.

Concluding the program was a sensibly paced, keenly detailed account of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.” Apart

from a few instances of untidy ensemble work, the performance was an altogether respectable showing for the

orchestra, which returned for two encores: a rollicking account of Bernstein’s “Candide” Overture and an animated medley of traditional Korean folk songs.

SARAH CHANG

Los Angeles Times August 25, 2010

Leonard Slatkin and Sarah Chang return to the Hollywood Bowl for

Shostakovich BY MARK SWED

After having spent a weekend devoted to Tchaikovsky with its current principal guest conductor for the Hollywood

Bowl, Bramwell Tovey, the Los Angeles Philharmonic went from an eagerly cheerless and iconic 19th century Russian

composer to a 20th century one on Tuesday. This time the conductor was Leonard Slatkin, the orchestra's first and previous principal guest at the Bowl, and the program was all Shostakovich.

The Tchaikovsky Spectacular, which began with a festive coronation march for Czar Alexander III, was designed for

fun and fireworks. Slatkin's Shostakovich was serious -- a violin concerto and symphony by a composer squirming under Stalin's thumb. Yet Tuesday's crowd was a gratifyingly sizable 8,797, only 20% fewer than TGIF pleasure-

seekers a few days earlier.

Slatkin has, himself, had a tumultuous year. He suffered, in Holland, a heart attack and, in New York, a Met attack. He recovered from both, although his unhappy Metropolitan Opera engagement, where he was accused of being

unprepared to conduct Verdi's "La Traviata," still seems to follow him.

Things clearly went wrong at the Met. But anyone who could offer as compellingly strong a performance of

Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and gracefully support as compellingly strong a soloist as Sarah Chang in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 -- all with minimal rehearsal time Tuesday -- knows what he is doing.

It hardly hurt to have a couple of old Bowl hands on hand. As a kid, Slatkin ushered at the Bowl (and his father, Felix

Slatkin, conducted there). In 2004, Chang, at 23, was the youngest artist ever to receive the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame Award.

Slatkin obviously knows the routine. But maybe he heard that male artists last week started a trend of replacing the

traditional white jacket with exotic alternatives. He wore black, but for a red tie. The jumpy video cameras must have

disapproved. They did their best to avoid him all evening. In the concerto, though, Chang and her tight red gown were examined from every angle.

She, on the other hand, didn't exactly examine Shostakovich from every angle. Rather she tackled the concerto head on,

with a ferocious determination. Hers was a performance as athletic as it was musical. To say that she met the concerto's considerable physical challenges with spectacular focus doesn't begin to describe the surety of her technique.

Shostakovich began his 1948 concerto with a somber Nocturne and ended with sardonically manic Burlesque, this at a

time when Soviet art was mandated to be upbeat. The composer didn't dare let the score out, though, until after Stalin's death five years later. Recordings of it by David Oistrakh, the great Russian violinist for whom the concerto was

written, reveal music of deep feeling and ambiguous mood swings.

Chang's performance was more in the line of avid defiance. There was never a question of hidden meanings, just in-

your-face resistance. And frankly, with an arena crowd normally quick to raise a glass of Champagne or text on a cellphone, stronger tactics than seduction are sometimes called for. In the cadenza, the determined violinist mowed

Sarah Chang

Los Angeles Times August 25, 2010

page 2 of 2

down opposition like a superhero. There was little subtlety to her playing, but her focus was extraordinarily tight and

the wow factor very high.

The Fifth Symphony is famous for being Shostakovich's double-edged answer to Stalin's criticism of a composer with too strong a mind of his own. Like Chang, Slatkin appeared in no mood to delve into Shostakovichian irony or

vainglory. He simply let the score be, a mighty symphony made of grand gestures and solemn melodies.

He did not exaggerate the grotesque satire or at the end get carried away with triumph. Instead he conducted each

measure with a measured, moving expression. The orchestra showed sinew and also, when wanted, quiet beauty.

Slatkin began the concert with "Tahiti Trot," Shostakovich's cute arrangement of "Tea for Two." He might well have

donned a white jacket and continued in that entertaining vein with a jazz suite or some other lighter Shostakovich

entertainment suitable for a warm evening. Instead he kept to the admirable high ground and got the full attention of players and crowd alike. Too bad the Met management wasn't on hand to see how it's done.

SARAH CHANG

The Daily Gazette August 19, 2010

Music review: Sarah Chang handles difficult performance

brilliantly BY GERALDINE FREEDMAN

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Violinist Sarah Chang returned to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Wednesday night

after a four-year absence and showed that she’s become one of the world’s great violinists. She was the featured soloist

with the Philadelphia Orchestra under guest conductor Peter Oundjian, who was making his SPAC debut.

After a breezy Mozart Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro,” Chang came out to play Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto

No. 1 in A minor (1947-48) — one of the most difficult works in the repertoire and one that she admitted that she

hadn’t tackled until she was in her early 20s (she’s 29 now). She dressed for the occasion in a gold and brown striped, strapless extravaganza made for her by Kruszynska Couture of London. Its gold glitter matched her performance.

Shostakovich had finished the four-movement work during the cultural crackdown that existed in the Soviet Union

after World War II. In these years until Stalin died in 1953, Stalin played cat and mouse with Shostakovich, approving some works and forbidding the performance of others. This concerto was not premiered until 1955 and immediately

impressed violinists with its virtuosic technical demands and needs for deep emotional and intellectual dedication.

Chang has gone the distance with these requirements. She took the concerto by storm with unrelenting intensity,

passion, power and an awe-inspiring memory for the thousands of notes she had to play. Much of the work has a dark, melancholy tone but the angst, loneliness and fury often surface in demonic ways.

The first movement is like a cry in the wilderness with long abstract lines in the violin that sometimes soar and other

times interweave dramatically with the orchestra, whose part is almost as difficult. The second was quirky and jumped around at very fast tempos. It was like a mad dance with hard licks in the orchestra and Chang who was playing a

frenzy of notes.

The third movement had a slower brass chorale, lyricism and an interesting dialogue without the orchestra between a

soft timpani and an introspective Chang that set the stage for another great masterpiece: the very long and complex cadenza. Chang started slowly with a rich tone and gradually built to a fury, which led into the gypsy-like, bitingly

sarcastic and devilish fourth movement. Chang was a wonder.

The concerto is not for the faint hearted. Even more was that Oundjian has never conducted the work. Yet, with only one rehearsal, not a pulse was out of sync. The orchestra sounded fabulous, balances were rarely an issue, and Chang

could focus on the job at hand.

The orchestra could take a breather with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Oundjian set conservative tempos in the first two movements that favored the lyrical elements but made the drama a little heavy. The orchestra played with a seamless

ensemble. Tempos were a bit brighter for the last two movements, which lightened the sound and propelled the music

forward better. The final page was especially strong.

Tonight is “Wicked Divas” with conductor Steven Reineke and vocalists Erin Mackey and Julia Murney.

Sarah Chang

Schenectady Gazette August 4, 2010

Von Oeyen shines, Chang dazzles to kick off chamber fest BY GERALDINE FREEDMAN

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Tuesday night at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival got off to a bold start when pianist

Andrew von Oeyen, violinist Sarah Chang's accompanist, took the stage for a solo turn. It was his festival debut.

Von Oeyen, 31, began Ravel's "Valse Nobles et Sentimentales" in a splashy and vibrant way. Endowed with an easy

and effortless technique, he easily navigated the numerous virtuosic demands and paced himself through all the many shifting moods. He chose to smudge his sound, almost at the sake of technical clarity but he built his climaxes well and

overall created a dreamy atmosphere.

Von Oeyen has a substantial solo career, but his real talent showed in the next piece, Faure's Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor with violinist Chantal Juillet, violist Choong-Jin Chang and cellist Efe Baltacigil. His sense of ensemble coupled

with his forceful playing propelled the group, which needed no encouragement to play with passion and fire. It was one

of the most magical of performances.

The blend of the four instruments was exceptional. Everyone listened passing melodic motifs around, sharing nuances

and strong inflections. Tempos were good, everything flowed.

But the large crowd was waiting for Chang. It’s been four years since she’s appeared at SPAC and in that time her

playing has only matured. The duo performed Franck’s romantic and virtuosic Violin Sonata in A Major.

Dressed in a black and white glittery gown by Pierre Balmain, Chang took charge from the start. Her tone was the

tenderest, as if she were singing a beautiful melody from a distance. As the piece developed, she layered the phrases

with great subtlety, letting them breathe, hinting at depths yet to plumb. Dynamic levels were extremely varied. At bigger volumes, especially at phrase peaks, she’d arch her back or take a few paces back or forward, completely

involved in the music.

She was charming to watch. Her playing dazzled. Every note was in place, every phrase was felt. Faster tempos had fire

and her lower notes had a dark lustrous tone.

Von Oeyen matched her note for note, nuance for nuance. He varied his tone and touch to suit the passage and was effortless in the virtuosic part. He was the perfect partner.

The crowd roared its approval and after many curtain calls was rewarded: Edward Elgar’s Salute d'Amour. The next festival concert is Monday and Chang returns on Aug. 18 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the

Shostakovich Violin Concerto.

N E W Y O R K • L O S A N G E L E S

Sarah Chang

CNN Entertainment May 12, 2010

Sarah Chang: Playing in Pyongyang

(CNN) -- Internationally renowned classical musician Sarah Chang has played violin to audiences in some of the

world's greatest capital cities. But her virtuosity has also helped gain her access to one of the world's most secretive of

places; Pyongyang.

The American with Korean heritage was invited to play in North Korea's capital with a South Korean orchestra in 2002,

and it proved to be one of the most remarkable experiences of her life.

"It really was very fascinating. It was an experience unlike any other. It was a joint concert between the KBS South

Korean orchestra and they shared the stage with the North Korean orchestra. It was pretty powerful," she said.

"The audience reaction was pretty remarkable. They were very warm. Personally, I was a little sad that didn't get to see

the general public. It was a very much a controlled environment to be in... I couldn't go anywhere without two soldiers

and an interpreter."

Despite being only 30 years old, Chang has traveled the world and been performing for more than two-thirds of her life.

While many child prodigies fail to translate that early talent into a career, Chang has matured into a highly regarded

musician who has recorded more than 20 albums. (Her first came when she was only 9).

She credits her successful career to a love for the music and performing.

"I think it was a mixture of genuinely loving being on stage, loving what I do. The travel is amazing, I get to work with

the most incredible musicians in the industry. I am so fortunate in that respect and [I have] just an amazing team to

help," she said.

N E W Y O R K • L O S A N G E L E S

Sarah Chang

Fort Worth Star Telegram May 8, 2010

Fort Worth Symphony begins its closing weekend on a beautiful note It's the last-chance weekend for the FWSO this weekend, and it's a triumphant conclusion.

BY CHRIS SHULL

FORT WORTH -- You've got just two more chances to hear the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra this weekend. Then

its classical season closes, and we grab our blankets and coolers and head to Concerts in the Garden.

The concert Friday conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya at Bass Hall featured two symphonic gems: the Violin

Concerto by Brahms with dynamic Sarah Chang as soloist, followed by the orchestra showpiece Pictures at an

Exhibition. Concerts Saturday and Sunday will add the Toccata for Orchestra by contemporary Peruvian Gonzalo

Garrido-Lecca.

Chang and Harth-Bedoya combined for a spacious, sure-footed Brahms. In the opening movement, the violin's icy

brilliance relaxed into a comfortable purr. A solo cadenza featured perfect fluttering trills and melodies etched in silver.

She flourished her bow like a magic wand and often danced in place when phrases ended.

Chang played the adagio's folksy hymn with a lovely, spun-silk sound. The Hungarian dance finale was unhurried to let

phrases breathe and rhythms rebound. Chang's virtuoso playing peaked in steely grandeur.

And talk about a triumphant conclusion to a concert and a season. Mussorgsky's Pictures, originally a piano piece but

famously orchestrated by Ravel, features every section of the orchestra at one time or another, often in scintillating

tonal combinations. The piece musically illustrates several pictures at an art show: quivering low strings and creepy

woodwinds to create a prowling Gnome; effervescent woodwinds and plucked strings to make a happily careening

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks; and heavy, brassy chords recalling ominous Catacombs. Strings cast an eerie pall

before broadening into sunlight and the chugging clamor of Baba-Yaga.

A feature of Pictures at an Exhibition is its extended musical palette. We hear a tangy alto saxophone (played by Joe

Eckert) cast a spell around a misty Old Castle. Euphonium player (and second trombonist) John Michael Hayes evoked

a lumbering, lowing Cattle, and piccolo trumpet player Steve Weger hectored the grave, somber strings in Samuel

Goldenberg and Schmuyle.

The Great Gate of Kiev ended the piece with nobility, strings humming honey-colored below triumphant brass, the

whole building into bell-tolling celebration.

Sarah Chang Liverpool Echo • January 15, 2009

Sarah Chang/ RLPO Philharmonic Hall WITH the spectre of recession at so many doors, it was heartening to see the Phil nigh on full for Sarah Chang’s bravura night of Brahms.

The 28-year-old superstar violinist made her Liverpool debut last night at the start of a trio of dates with the RLPO.

And she found an empathetic partner in conductor Sir Charles Mackerras.

Returning almost a year to the week since his last concert in Hope Street, Sir Charles was also modestly marking his new role as the orchestra’s Conductor Emeritus.

The Australian, who succeeds the much-loved late Vernon Handley, is a pocket dynamo who, at 83, shows no signs of tiring.

Brahms composed only one violin concerto, and it’s a technically demanding musical mountain for a musician.

Former child prodigy Chang took its rhythmic variations and speedy scales in seemingly easy stride, producing a songbird sweet tone when not skipping over the myriad bars of double stopping in the tricksy score.

Her faultless fingerwork was evidenced in a show-off cadenza to the first movement which showcased the passage’s impressive technical wizardry.

Chang’s performance was underpinned by an assured Philharmonic, who produced a delicate woodwind-led motif in the adagio and a vibrant allegro giocoso.

Brahms was bookended in the programme, repeated tomorrow night, by the overture to Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No 7.

Mackerras appears a low-key, kindly figure at the rostrum, but perhaps could have had the orchestra under a little tighter control in the early, quieter passages of Wagner’s tempestuous overture.

Sarah Chang Liverpool Echo January 15, 2009 page 2 of 2

But there was no doubt the stormy surges and swelling crescendos of the brass and strings – in a formation on the stage which had the cellos cutting a swathe between the violins and violas – were impressively powerful.

And there were no such issues in Beethoven’s stirring symphony.

The opening poco sostenuto featured a merry country dance-style solo from flautist Cormac Henry and bold dynamics from the full orchestra.

While the opening of the allegretto was perhaps a little too bold, it quickly became gently moving and stately.

A sparky, finely nuanced final presto led to an exciting allegro con brio whose exuberance neatly summed up the evening.

Sarah Chang

Berkshire Eagle July 28, 2008

Music to part the clouds BY ANDREW L. PINCUS

There is (or used to be) a legendary story in journalistic lore about a reporter sent out to cover a major flood in

Pennsylvania.

Awe-struck, he filed a report that began, "God sat down on the mountaintop and wept." Unimpressed, the city editor

fired off a reply that began, "Forget flood. Interview God."

For a time, yesterday's Tanglewood concert by the visiting Orchestra of St. Luke's threatened to become an event of

that kind: Forget music.

Interview weatherman. The concert began late amid a colossal thunderstorm, with lawn sitters given shelter in the back

rows of the Shed, and continued through the first half amid a constant cannonade of thunder.

But you know what? This program parted the clouds, musically speaking.

The concluding Beethoven Seventh Symphony got a performance that made you want to jump up and shout, "Yes! Hit

me again! This is the way music should always be!"

Is this the way they always do things at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, N. Y. , where the chamber-sized ensemble

spends its summers?

Based in New York City, the Orchestra of St. Luke's is made up of players who appear to be mostly on the comfortable

side of 40. Under Roberto Abbado, they certainly played with youthful energy and spirit, as well as spit-and-polish

accuracy.

That Beethoven Seventh was full of surprises of the good kind. It isn't easy to make music as familiar as this sound

fresh without diddling around with it, but Beethoven's rhythmic obsessions crackled with nuance, drive, biting attacks

and dynamic shadings — with all the juices of life that can make this symphony irresistible. The horns gloried in their

big role. Abbado seemed determined to find everything stated or implied in the score. It was all there in glowing color

under the sodden skies.

The program opened on a somber note that had nothing to do with the weather: Joan Tower's 2001 threnody, "In

Memory."

Sarah Chang

Berkshire Eagle July 28, 2008

page 2 of 2

Note that date. In a program note, Tower explained that the 15-minute piece started out as an elegy for a friend but soon

9/11 occurred and turned it into a lament for the victims of the attack as well.

If pain can be made audible without words, this composition does it.

Soft, descending passages with slowly shifting, tightly clustered dissonances alternate with near-screams of agony.

This doesn't make easy listening. But Tower succeeded in giving voice to what she describes as "the anger and pain that

results from the loss of people in one's life." A teacher at Bard College, winner of major awards, and frequent presence

in the Berkshires, she was on hand for a bow.

Sarah Chang was a memorizing soloist in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, another well-worn concert piece.

With focused playing and tone, and tempos that seemed to breathe with the music, she made the familiar music

at once hers and Mendelssohn's. The long song of the slow movement was especially fetching. Under Abbado,

orchestra and soloist were as one in their collaboration.

Sarah Chang

Strings Magazine February 2008

VIVALDI: The Four Seasons, Op. 8; Concerto in G Minor, Op. 12,

No. 1. Sarah Chang, violin; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. (EMI 3

94431 2)

BY EDITH EISLER

Among Vivaldi’s innumerable violin concertos, the Four Seasons stand out for their variety and

inventiveness and the brilliant effectiveness of the solo part. They are different in form and content

from his other, often rather similar concertos and, moreover, are thought to be the first examples of

program music, with their evocation of the sounds of nature and vivid images of man’s response to

the changing seasons. Vivaldi prefaced the concertos with descriptive sonnets, in order, he said, “to

explain the music more easily,” and even headed each segment with the salient lines.

The concertos have spawned an enormous discography, so anyone adding yet another recording

must bring to it a highly personal, very convincing interpretation. Sarah Chang approaches the “Seasons” from a

primarily programmatic viewpoint. Mightily abetted by the versatile, adaptable players of Orpheus, she uses her

unlimited virtuosity and silken, intense, variable tone to carry out Vivaldi’s instructions with all tonal and textural

resources: ponticello, very short staccato, scintillating trills. You can hear the hunting horns, bagpipes, harvest dances;

the thunder, lightning, wind, and rain; the birdsongs, murmuring brooks, even the barking of a dog.

Tempi are moderate, but the fast passages generate headlong speeds. The slow movements are still and peaceful, the

climaxes passionate. This is a highly dramatic, all-out performance, fearless and uninhibited technically and

emotionally. Dynamic contrasts are extreme, and colors range from a glassy, unvibrated sound to full-blooded

throbbing.

While far removed from “period practice,” it is genuinely felt and persuasive on its own terms. Chang plays the

familiar G minor concerto with the same lush tone and almost romantic expressiveness, and with lots of spirit and

charm. The colorful booklet carries Vivaldi’s sonnets in four languages. It also carries nine pictures of Chang, some

amid autumn leaves and snowflakes, in glamorous gowns and distressingly affected poses completely at variance with

her honest, spontaneous playing.

Sarah Chang

MusicalCriticism.com January 27, 2008

Interview: Sarah Chang on Shostakovich, The Four Seasons and

loving London

BY HUGO SHIRLEY

In a world seemingly awash with outstanding young violinists, one stands out of the crowd. Still some distance off her

thirtieth birthday, Sarah Chang has almost two decades of a top flight career behind her already. She also has an

extensive discography on EMI, a label she has recorded exclusively with since her 'Debut' album, on which the nine

year-old violinist tossed off virtuoso show-pieces on a quarter size instrument. Although technically this was

impressive enough for her age, seasoned critics heard more than just the performances of an outstanding prodigy: they

heard a real musician.

Her greatest triumph is not the fact that she was so accomplished that at age nine Yehudi Menhuin could call her 'the

most wonderful, the most perfect, the most ideal violinist I have ever heard' but that she should have made the

transition from prodigy to fully-fledged virtuoso with such apparent ease. When I speak to her over the phone, she is at

her home in Philadelphia, sounding relaxed and more than pleased to talk.

First I ask her about her forthcoming visit to London when, on 21 February, she'll be performing Shostakovich's Violin

Concerto No.1 with the London Symphony Orchestra under Leif Segerstam. I mention a previous interview where she

said that she related particularly to Shostakovich at the moment, being 'young and temperamental'. She laughs: 'That's

the problem with interviews, they always print stuff you can't really remember saying'. But does she identify with the

First Concerto?

'It has to be one of the most well-rounded concertos,' she tells me. 'It's so dramatic and so powerful; very masculine

and very serious. It has gorgeous, lyrical melodies contrasted with very angry and virtuosic music. For me, it's the stuff

of pure genius. It's very complicated structurally and calls for pinpoint accuracy with the ensemble, and you're pitted

against a big orchestra – all that brass and percussion. It's completely different to the Brahms and Beethoven concertos,

which of course I love, but you need to be in a serene place to do those pieces justice. The Shostakovich is a piece

where you can't hold anything back.'

It's a work she's had in her repertoire for a long time, having recorded it live a couple of years ago in Berlin with Simon

Rattle. The time spent with Rattle and his orchestra on this work and its Prokofiev coupling she describes as 'the most

musically satisfying musical weeks of my life'. And what was behind the decision to record them live? 'We'd talked

about making a studio recording but then decided that it would be better to do it live where we'd be on stage and more

alert, to keep it edgy and risky.'

Picking up on the way she emphasises the work's 'masculinity', I ask whether she sees herself as bringing any innate

femininity to her interpretation. She admits that it is actually the more lyrical, less aggressive sections in the third

movement – the heart of the work – that show what a musician is made of. 'There are plenty of people who can play the

virtuosic passages but this is what calls for real musicianship. In any case, I actually see myself as a very masculine

player; my violin [a 1717 Guarneri del Gesu] is a throaty, dark instrument and one that is perfectly suited to my style.'

Sarah Chang

MusicalCriticism.com January 27, 2008

page 2 of 3

She received help in choosing her violin from Isaac Stern and when I mention the great violinist, an extra note of

fondness enters her voice: 'Yes, I'm very grateful to him. When my hands were eventually big enough for a full size

violin, Isaac got together a selection of six or seven instruments for me and took me over to Carnegie Hall to try them

out – he could pull some strings there. He played on them, then I played on them, but as soon as I played the first note

on the Del Gesu I fell in love with it straight away. It suited my character best. It's just like me: it's temperamental, and

if it's unhappy it will let you know. I've managed to mould it to my character and style and only now am I finding its

hidden secrets, finding out exactly what it can and can't do.'

Chang's latest recording for EMI is of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Listening to the

disc one can detect a real awareness of 'authentic' performance but there's still the trademark richness of tone and

temperament. I ask whether she was tempted at any stage to swap her beloved Del Gesu for a Baroque instrument when

making this recording. Initially she's at pains to point out that the decision to add yet another recording of this favourite

wasn't one that was taken lightly.

'When we decided to do a recording of The Four Seasons, I kept on holding it off. I was very much aware of the fact

that everybody and their grandmother had recorded it, so I really wanted to be completely ready before committing it to

tape. And I did try Baroque bows and gut strings and spoke to several of my friends who play in this way, but at the

end of the day I wanted to focus on the music. I didn't want to have to perform out of my comfort zone using a type of

instrument and way of playing that was different to the way I'd trained.

She must have learnt quite a lot from having a go on the baroque instruments though?

'Oh yes, you learn a lot from just trying these things and adopting that style of playing. Vivaldi is very pure and almost

childlike; many sections of it are extremely feminine. Performing them I needed to keep it all light and playful. When

you're on stage it's much more natural to give everything you have but in these works you need to keep yourself in

check, it's a very different way of playing. I also had a great time with the freedom that the Baroque repertoire gives

you in terms of ornamentation. Before recording the work I wanted to feel really secure and gave so many concerts in

different structures. I did them with a conductor and with me leading, with a chamber orchestra or with full orchestra,

and wanted to find a configuration that would work best for my character.'

In the end, the recording was made without a conductor, Chang leading the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from the

violin. When I ask if it's given her a taste for conducting her answer is typical of someone who, throughout the

interview, seems totally secure in their talent, with little desire than to develop that speciality. 'To be honest, I've

worked with so many incredible Maestros for whom I have so much respect and admiration, and I know I wouldn't be

anywhere near as good as them. I know my limits and personally I think there's enough repertoire for the violin and

enough new challenges to keep me busy. I'm very content as I am.'

Chang's discography, as well as containing many of the old war-horse concertos, also extends to some works that are a

little off the beaten track – concertos by Richard Strauss and, to a slightly lesser extent, Dvorak. Does she have any

other works that she wants to try and bring back into the public consciousness?

'I'm always looking. I'm always buying music and people send me scores. My mum is a composer and I think that's

where I get my curiosity from. I actually perform a lot of new music now. I've been playing a new work by Richard

Danielpour and am due to be performing a new concerto by Christopher Theofanidis in October 2008.' She speaks

enthusiastically about having a work written for her. 'I love the whole process of being involved from the first draft and

it's fascinating to watch how a composer's mind works. The only problem is when you spend hours learning a

Sarah Chang

MusicalCriticism.com January 27, 2008

page 3 of 3

particularly difficult passage and he then just goes and scratches it out and rewrites it! Although the big, standard

concertos are always going to be my meat and vegetables, I'm really excited about performing all this new music too.'

Another area that's important to her is chamber music; when I ask why this is, her answer is simple. 'Because I love it!

It's such a challenging from of music. It's the most difficult to learn for me, as well, since I've been playing the big

concertos now for many years. It gives me the opportunity to work with some amazing musicians and learn from their

experience.' And does it inform the way she plays as a soloist? 'Yes, definitely. It forces you to think about the music

differently, to look at a score vertically rather than horizontally. I'd always thought of the Brahms concerto, for

example, as just that, concentrating mainly on my part. Coming back to it after playing lots of chamber music, though, I

realized that it's just a symphony that Brahms has been nice enough to include a solo violin part in. Chamber music is

just another way that I try and keep myself challenged.'

Before Christmas, she had come to London as part of her tour playing The Four Seasons and she's back there with the

LSO in February. Does she feels she has a special relationship with the LSO and the London itself?

'I spend a lot of time in London now, it's a city I adore. It's got so much culture, so many amazing places, wonderful

restaurants. I've got lots of friends there and we always go for great nights out… some which I remember better than

others! It's a city that just draws you in. And the LSO really is a phenomenal orchestra. I first recorded with them when,

I think, I was eleven, when we did the Tchaikovsky concerto. It's an orchestra that's made up of some of the best, really

first class musicians in the world. And although I think I've now made a couple more recordings with the Berlin

Philharmonic than with the LSO, it's an orchestra that's always top of my list to work with when we're planning new

recordings.'

The way she nonchalantly mentions recording the Tchaikovsky concerto aged eleven makes me ask about how she now

feels about her past as a prodigy. In her answer she focuses on how she see things now as having improved: 'When I

started out, there were too many people in the picture with record companies, parents and agents. I really love it now

that I have more say when picking projects, you become a whole creature by yourself and I'm just having more fun.'

Does she ever worry that she's always going to be seen as the 'former-prodigy', rather than as a mature musician on her

own terms? 'I think there are people who don't realise that I'm not in my teens anymore and it's always going to be a

point of discussion, but you just have to put up with that. You realise you're in a really fortunate position and that's

what makes you happiest and you've got all these great conductors and orchestras out there to keep you motivated.'

In many ways, Chang seems to be a paradox. Despite her youth, throughout our conversation she makes it clear that she

sees herself, unapologetically, as a Romantic violinist of the old school. Although she always tries to tie in educational

work whenever she visits a city, she's dubious about gimmicks to bring in young audiences. 'I feel all these ideas

detract from the old-world glamour of concerts. Performances usually take place in these amazing, ornate buildings and

I always feel that the performers getting dressed up – me wearing a beautiful dress – is all part of the experience. You

wouldn't go to the theatre and have people perform without any props, so I think musicians should have that same sort

of respect.'

Having so triumphantly overcome all the pitfalls associated with the transition from child prodigy to successful, well-

adjusted virtuoso, Chang is simply brimming with anticipation of the career that she still sees as only just beginning.

'I'm so much happier now when I look back but am excited that there's still so much to do. I'm still one of the youngest

out there and I want to be playing until my seventies, like Oistrakh, Milstein and Heifetz all did. And as long as the

fingers still work and the heart's willing, there's no reason why I shouldn't be.'

Sarah Chang

Audiophile Audition January 20, 2008

VIVALDI: The Four Seasons, Op. 8; Violin Concerto in G Minor,

Op. 12, No. 1, RV 317 - Sarah Chang, violin/Orpheus Chamber

Orchestra - EMI Classics

BY GARY LEMCO

VIVALDI: The Four Seasons, Op. 8; Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 12,

No. 1, RV 317 - Sarah Chang, violin/Orpheus Chamber Orchestra - EMI

Classics 3 94431 2, 54:04 ****:

Yet another slick, polished version of Vivaldi’s perennial instantiation of Nature’s transitions in

music, this time from sweet-toned Sarah Chang and the bright-spirited Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

(rec. 21-24 May, 2007). There are occasional risks in Chang’s playing, which I like, such as her

attack in the G Minor, RV 315 “Summer” Concerto’s opening Allegro, with a lovely sustaining

drone from bass Jordan Frazier and tinkling cymbal from harpsichord continuo John Gibbons.

Indeed, the bass lines throughout are clear, articulate, and rhythmically varied. Chang’s strong suit is the lovely arioso

she conveys, tempered by a sizzling drive that puts her more in line with Guila Bustabo and her ilk than the milquetoast

virtuosi who glut the market. After a highly meditative Adagio, the summer storm breaks in full force, Chang whipping

through the broken chords, blood-pounding furioso. Haunting, hushed chords sans clichés in the lovely Adagio of

“Autumn,” RV 293, the solo violin absent. The ensuing march enjoys a pompous verve from Orpheus, while Chang

applies a raspy, hearty peasant dance spiced with swirling ornaments.

“Winter” in F Minor, RV 297 has its greatest realization on record for me in the collaboration on CBS LP between

Isaac Stern and the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, but Chang’s provides plenty of digital firepower and silky

maneuvers. The plucked accompaniment for the Largo section complements an arched song of tender sentiments. The

serpentine melodic line of the final Allegro enjoys the nuances of loud and soft in ravishing alternation, the ice cracking

beneath our cautious feet, the laughter bursting forth in our appreciation of Nature’s dangers and generosity, both. The

concluding work, the G Minor Concerto from Op. 12, resonates with Lombardic self confidence, coy and demure at

once. The extended Largo emerges as a church sonata, a kind of organ sonority in the deep chant of the celli and violas,

the moment anticipating further developments by Viotti.

SARAH CHANG

Daytona Beach News-Journal March 28, 2007

Violin and piano weave timeless tapestry

BY LAURA STEWART

Sarah Chang made magic Tuesday at her Central Florida Cultural Endeavors recital. The violin virtuoso raised her

1717 Guarneri del Gesu to her chin, glanced at pianist Ashley Wass and,

simply, made time fly.

The stormy notes of Beethoven's Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47,

"Kreutzer," tumbled through the News-Journal Center in an ongoing

somersault between the most sublime heights and depths of human

emotion. The duo made Beethoven sound different: more urgent and vital,

and absolutely personal. Chang's violin was a tremulous human voice in

the Sonata's second movement, then abruptly became a playful whisper

before changing again, this time into a light, sweet song.

The Presto evoked a tumult of runaway passions; Chang's hot, quick

bowing matched the piano's emphatic chords neck-in-neck. From the start,

the well-matched duo showed how easy, and how enjoyable, virtuosity can

be. They were equally inspired and forceful, though Chang was never less

than clearly the leader in a program that lasted almost two hours but that

seemed to telescope into a vivid sonic experience that stood outside

workaday time.

The impassioned nuances of "Kreutzer" were so powerful that it was

difficult to imagine what could top it, or at least change the mood. Yet the

work that followed, the 2006 "River of Light" that Richard Danielpour

wrote in memory of legendary violinist Isaac Stern, was the recital's

pivotal highlight.

The cool, reflective tone poem opened with the piano's sparest notes and,

floating above them like fireflies over water, the long, lush strands that Chang let fade into thin air. The somber

meditation on the symbolic river between being and nothingness --life and death -- was lucid and cerebral, but also

sensuous and profoundly satisfying. Notes seemed suspended, shimmering, as piano and violin wove a tone of

acceptance, and ultimate serenity.

Nothing could have been more at odds with the crystalline beauty of Danielpour's elegy than Prokofiev's Sonata No. 2

in D major, Op. 94a, and Chang gave it the dynamism it demanded. The flowing Moderato gave way to a second

movement whose quick, skittering notes played against one another to build and stretch edgy, almost angry tensions

tight.

Still more energetic was the final movement, with shifting sonic planes that at first resisted one another. But then,

gradually and in tandem, as Chang's strong passages began to meld with the piano's, the two voices rose together in an

increasingly frenzied, nearly unbearably intense duet. As Prokofiev's Sonata reached its taut, barely restrained final

notes, Chang threw herself into the fray, stamping, hopping and tossing her head in an unconscious echo of the music.

Sarah Chang

Daytona Beach News-Journal March 28, 2007

page 2 of 2

Finally, after a standing ovation that went on and on, the duo resolved the recital's tensions with a lyrical encore that

brought the audience back to Earth. Magically, "Spring," from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," was the perfect end to a

perfect recital; suddenly, somehow, almost the evening had evaporated, leaving the audience surprised and refreshed.

Sarah Chang

San Diego Union Tribune March 20, 2007

Chang is gleaming, exalts mentor Stern with 'River of Light'

BY VALERIE SCHER

During the world première of Richard Danielpour's "River of Light" over the weekend at downtown's Copley

Symphony Hall, violinist Sarah Chang infused a series of high notes with such luminous intensity that each pitch

seemed to glow with feeling. She played as if the music held special meaning for her and flowed from a deep emotional

connection.

That's not surprising when you consider "River of Light" was written for Chang in memory of the man she considered

her musical godfather, legendary violinist Isaac Stern, who died in 2001.

"He had a huge influence on my life," Chang said Sunday at the La Jolla Music Society's Celebrity Series recital, which

also included works by Beethoven and Prokofiev. The 26-year-old superstar, who first played for Stern at age 6, added

that she "jumped at the chance" to honor him through Danielpour's work.

She had just two requests for the Grammy-winning, New York-born composer: that the piece not be too long and that it

be a "thought-provoking" reflection of Stern's complexity.

Danielpour certainly succeeded in the first regard - "River of Light" is a compact 12 minutes. But nothing short of a

symphony could probably convey the many facets of Stern, whose legacy includes helping save Carnegie Hall, where

Chang and pianist Ashley Wass will perform the work next month.

At Sunday's concert, the slow, steady opening was especially affecting, with gently jingling piano passages that

sounded like ghostly chimes. The violin and piano phrases, played in unison, set the tone for the sometimes

tempestuous composition that makes the "River" a metaphor for death and transcendence.

Danielpour's piece, like the rest of the program, benefited from Chang's promising partnership with Wass, the English

musician who has joined her on tour for the first time. Chang has said she wants a pianist who will be a musical equal,

and she appears to have found one.

Rather than take a subservient role, Wass proved to be an assertive accompanist, matching Chang's penetrating tone

with robust contributions of his own. Nowhere was that more apparent than in Beethoven's ever-so-grand Violin Sonata

in A Major ("Kreutzer").

In the opening movement, Wass responded to Chang's stately chords so naturally that it was if he were picking up a

conversation where she left off. The interaction was even more elaborate in the second movement, where the

unassuming theme prompted four variations featuring everything from undulating arpeggios to lengthy unison trills.

For visceral excitement, nothing surpassed the finale, with rapid bursts of eighth-notes in both violin and piano leading

to an exuberantly fortissimo conclusion.

The partnership was occasionally problematic in Prokofiev's Violin Sonata in D Major, where the piano's forcefully

repetitive passages in the last movement nearly drowned out the violin. More often, however, Chang and Wass

achieved a tonal balance that was mutually enhancing. Chang artfully shaped the slow movement's melodic line,

Sarah Chang

San Diego Union Tribune March 20, 2007

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soaring into her instrument's upper register as Wass supplied carefully attentive support.

As an encore, Chang and Wass revealed the graceful charm of an arrangement of the Largo from the winter portion of

Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." Chang will perform the complete "Seasons" in August at La Jolla Music Society

SummerFest, which made her playing a tantalizing sample of what is to come.

Sarah Chang

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal January 27, 2007

Frenzy and filigree in MSO’s Russian bill

BY ELAINE SCHMIDT

The music of two passionate Russian composers, speaking entirely different musical languages, filled the Milwaukee

Symphony Orchestra's program Friday evening.

Violinist Sarah Chang and conductor Rossen Milanov joined the orchestra for performances of Dmitri Shostakovich's

enigmatic Concerto No. 1 in A minor for violin and orchestra and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's familiar, accessible

"Scheherazade."

The Shostakovich opened the evening. From the long, weeping phrases of the opening bars to a lengthy, gripping

cadenza later on, Chang was completely mesmerizing.

Playing with an enormous, ringing sound, her aggressive, physical style filled the piece with the raw emotion and fierce

power it demands. She used colors, both bold and subtle, to give meaning to the smallest of musical details, never

allowing her sound to be lost in even the densest orchestrations.

Chang's interpretation was forward moving - even frenzied at times - but never out of control. Milanov and orchestra

matched that sensibility, putting the fascinating textures of Shostakovich's score in the spotlight throughout the piece.

The performance won an immediate, cheering, standing ovation.

From the edgy, often tragic sounds of the Shostakovich that filled the program's first half, the orchestra turned to the

melodic, lavishly orchestrated "Scheherazade" for the program's second half.

A spirited, character-filled reading, dotted with beautifully played solos and clean, artful section work from within the

orchestra made the piece an absolute treat to hear. Milanov and the players gave it a reading that was urgent and

compelling but never rushed or hurried.

Frank Almond's always-fascinating, soulful restatements of the piece's signature violin solo, soaring horn solos from

William Barnewitz, meaningful clarinet passages from Todd Levy and a host of other solo voices gave the piece fire

and color. Warm waves of string sound, cleanly executed tutti cello passages, ringing brass sounds and articulate

section playing across the orchestra were all part of the recipe.

Conducting without a score, Milanov gave the piece a cohesive, thoughtful interpretation that allowed the players of the

orchestra freedom to shine.

Sarah Chang

Bay Area Reporter March 23, 2006

Friday’s child: Violin star Sarah Chang at Davies Hall

BY PHILIP CAMPBELL

After several weeks away from Davies Hall and the San Francisco Symphony, I headed back to Grove Street

recently in enthusiastic anticipation of a performance by violin star Sarah Chang and infrequent but welcome

guest conductor Marek Janowski.

Arriving early enough to immerse myself in program notes and audience chatter, I couldn't help but notice that the

general buzz concerned a review of Ms. Chang's performance on the opening night of the series.

Blistering and dismissive, the comments in question seemed also to be perplexingly brief. Thankfully, I never

break with personal tradition by reading such criticisms in advance, or my own judgments might have been

clouded. I did, however rush to make comparison later, and all I can say is, I'm glad I went on Friday.

Sarah Chang has had the kind of prodigy career, so far, that can only be dreamed of by most young artists.

Starting lessons at five with the legendary teacher Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard, and auditioning for the likes of

Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti by eight couldn't have happened unless there was something very special about a

little girl with a quarter-size violin.

Physical adorability notwithstanding (her baby pictures are irresistible), the tiny dynamo really looked to be the

genuine article, and she continued to d

eliver on early promise, with a run of amazing debuts and concerts all through her teen years.

Chang's technique was matched by an amazingly full tone that could fill the largest hall, but most important was

her uncanny ability to look beyond the notes and deliver performances of surprising interpretive maturity.

Now in her mid-20s, the Philadelphia-born child of Korean parents (who have mercifully encouraged her without

intrusive stage-managing) is fully embarked in the competitive mainstream of touring virtuosi. If it's Wednesday,

it must be San Francisco - or was that Pittsburgh? Her youth should be a real help with that kind of scheduling.

Fairy tale

Making an entrance Friday evening at Davies Hall that actually drew gasps from the crowd, in a couture gown of

floor-length winter-white chiffon with a black sequined lace vestment, the all-grown-up Sarah Chang looked

every inch the fairy princess and confident solo attraction.

My previous knowledge of her approach to the beloved Violin Concerto by Jean Sibelius came only from

listening to it on disc (coupled with a richer Mendelssohn interpretation). Her live rendition was in every way

comparable, acceptable and satisfactory, but these are words not usually associated with the lovely superstar.

Sarah Chang

Bay Area Reporter March 23, 2006

page 2 of 2

Some prevailing problems were apparent almost immediately--Chang's tendency to rush and not fully color

intricate passagework, and her certain coolness in big emotional outbursts proved most disappointing.

No one could miss her obvious commitment, however, or her passionate intensity throughout the breathtaking

final movement. If she didn't receive the kind of tumultuous reception she must be accustomed to, it might have

been that bum review, or the curious fickleness of San Francisco audiences.

The response was warm enough, long enough and big enough to reward her for a reading that had me marveling

again at the beauty of the music itself, and the still-surprising mastery of a very young artist. Chang has said

herself that she abhors cookie-cutter performances. Who knows, if Friday was so much better than Wednesday,

maybe Saturday was best of all?

The rest of the evening was given to Janowski's jewel-like approach to Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony No. 6. It

was a far cry from the frozen tundra of Sibelius and Finland, and some of the movements sounded more like

Mozart than Ludwig van, but the quiet and unprepossessing conductor managed one of the most appealing and

well-played renditions I have ever heard from the SFS.

Sarah Chang

The Times Online (London) February 10, 2006

Shostakovich/Prokofiev EMI Classics BY GEOFF BROWN

Many concertos and concerts have flowed under the violin’s bridge since Sarah Chang recorded her first disc at

the age of 11. That was 13 years ago. But child prodigy violinists still have milestones to reach in their twenties:

EMI Classics’ coupling of the first violin concertos of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, for instance, marks her first

CD collaboration with Sir Simon Rattle. “An absolute genius,” she burbles in the press release, “a musical

godfather.”

Sometimes these performances, recorded at Berlin Philharmonic concerts last summer, seem as awed by the

presence of Rattle as Chang herself. The orchestra weighs prominently in the sound balance; and among

numerous styling titbits, Shostakovich’s burlesque finale seems pure Rattle in its ravenous speeds and liking for

bold colours. (Note the raucous, sarcastic woodwinds.) Yet Chang is hardly a shrinking violent. Though her basic

tone has always been sweet, she can shade her violin a thousand ways, and with lightning speed too. Listen to her

hushed despair five minutes into Shostakovich’s opening nocturne; or her Olympic gymnastics in Prokofiev’s

scherzo.

She’s an attractively rounded performer, too. Placing her Prokofiev next to Maxim Vengerov’s recording is

revealing. His hues are dark; hers are light. He’s smoothly perfect, but a touch machine-made; Chang is warmer,

quirkier, more humane. For long-term listening, I know which one I prefer.

It’s the mighty Shostakovich concerto, however, that proves this CD’s big test. For all Chang’s quick virtuosity,

whenever undiluted passion is needed she tends to erect a fireguard. To most star violinists, the double-stopped

moments in the lengthy cadenza are occasions for digging down hard on the strings; Chang almost skates over

them.

On the other hand, her flexibility in bowing and tempos keeps these performances living and breathing, very

much caught on the hop.

Nothing of the coffin about Rattle’s orchestra too, even when some textural details seem too brightly lit. And as

Shostakovich’s finale races to its finish, any earlier scruples vanish.

Fireguard or not, this is a CD crackling with excitement.

Sarah Chang

The Seattle Times October 29, 2005

Violinist Chang continues to wow

BY GEORGE H.

What makes a great musical evening? Contributing elements are many, and in Thursday night's Seattle Symphony

concert these elements came together to shape an evening of high art.

At the podium was guest conductor Matthew Coorey, conductor-in-residence of the Royal Liverpool

Philharmonic. This was his U.S. debut, and an auspicious one it was. Coorey is a no-nonsense conductor with a

relaxed podium style, a clear beat and a keen rhythmic sense that was always conveyed without undue histrionics.

The orchestra responded and played in an exalted manner.

Review: With Sarah Chang, Thursday night, Benaroya Hall, Seattle

A Rossini overture is a great opener. In the familiar Overture to "L'Italiana in Algeri," Coorey lovingly shaped

phrases and made the most of the critical silences that make the contrasting elements so effective. The dancelike

rhythms sparkled with optimism and solidity and the orchestral sound was lustrous.

The evening focused on the young Korean-American violinist Sarah Chang, an artist who has established herself

as a major player on today's musical scene. Besides her appearances with major orchestras, she was named

Gramophone's "Young Artist of the Year" in 1993. Chang appeared in a stunning orange dress for the Sarasate

"Fantasy on Bizet's Carmen." Based on five familiar numbers from the opera, the "Fantasy" was a perfect vehicle

for Chang to demonstrate her prowess. She commands an astonishingly rich and vibrant tone which she used to

great advantage in the extreme registers of the piece. The audience loved it.

The Sarasate was a perfect foil for Stravinsky's dramatic "Firebird" Suite. It is work of great contrasts, and Coorey

persuasively shaped and projected the arched phrases. It was in the agitated middle section that Coorey fell short -

it was solid but somewhat studied, and it lacked the wildness and abandon that Stravinsky intended.

It was our good fortune to again hear Chang after intermission, in the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor. The

Sibelius concerto was wisely chosen following the Stravinsky because its emotional content is more subdued and

brooding. Chang negotiated the difficult passagework with the ease of a great artist. Especially memorable was

the lovely second movement in which Chang projected the romantic phrases with great warmth. The final

movement made a triumphant statement of faith and optimism.

Sarah Chang

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette February 12, 2005

Sarah Chang brilliant with PSO BY ANDREW DRUCKENROD

The fanfares of liberation and the strains of victory we know well when it comes to war. These comprise the salient music of

World War II in the memory of Americans.

As we mark the 60th anniversary of that war's end, however, it's fitting to visit the flip side -- the sound of the oppression and

horror of war.

This was the angle taken last night by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall, and it was emotionally cathartic.

The scene was Russia, a polar opposite to the United States in the effects of the war. Prokofiev's Symphony No. 6 and

Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 painted stringent and dolorous paintings of the destruction and desolation of conflict,

preceded by the third "Leonore" overture to Beethoven's moving essay on subjugation, the opera "Fidelio."

But this was a night for positives and beginnings, too. Andrew Davis took the podium for the first time since being named

artistic adviser. No grand declaration yet about him as a choice. He doesn't officially start until September, so any evaluation

must be patient. It took years for former director Mariss Jansons to click with the PSO.

There were spectacular moments last night, but also some tentative playing, especially in the Beethoven, some balance

problems with the percussion and brass and ensemble discrepancies. The former are issues of familiarity and the latter

partially due to the scheduling that rendered this the first tutti concert in two months. Still, Davis' overall conception of the

works was impressive, especially his taut rendering of the Prokofiev, keeping it poignant but not sentimental.

But it wasn't Davis who was noticed in the Shostakovich, not with the scorchingly brilliant, mesmerizing performance by

violinist Sarah Chang. It was probably her best performance yet at Heinz Hall. Long a virtuosic violinist with inconsistency

in reaching depth, here she connected to the very underpinnings of this anxious and troubled view of Stalin's Russia.

In the mysterious opening movement, "Nocturne," she played with uncommon intensity. We were hearing a mature Chang

like never before. It's a wonder she had any bow hair left after the countless strands she broke throughout in swashbuckling

style. Using her impossibly huge sound on angry and frightened passages thrilled the ear. She seemed made for this work and

the orchestra responded, with Davis as willing conduit.

Sarah Chang

Toronto Star November 12, 2004

Violin star spices TSO’s Czech feast BY GEOFF CHAPMAN

The concert was billed as a Czech feast, but it was one that could have been seriously indigestible but for the presence

of a young violinist mega-star from south of the border.

That would be Sarah Chang, who positively sparkled last night in the Toronto Symphony's entrée at the first of two

Roy Thomson Hall concerts featuring four Czech composers, showing that the usually under-rated Dvorak Violin

Concerto in A Minor is a really substantial work.

The concert's overall programming was varied enough, and if the execution striven for by music director Peter

Oundjian had come anywhere near to that provided in support of violinist Chang (who in her early 20s already has had

a 15-year performing career), it would have been a most satisfying night.

Dvorák, who managed to reconcile folk and symphonic traditions, composed a work with infectious melodies, vivid

coloration and youthful verve in his luminous score. Chang, who has recorded it with the London Symphony under

Colin Davis, seized her opportunities instantly, turning in a magisterial, perfectly gauged account that was blessed with

flawless tone and beauty of phrasing.

An animated performer, she prowled her space next to conductor Oundjian and lent vigorous body language to the

work, her bow dancing effortlessly through its themes. Such expressive passion, such aching reticence, such feathery

lightness, such tensile strength — it was a truly engaging display, fleet and fluent and one sure to be repeated tonight at

8.

A short piece from Smetana, one of the six symphonic poems that make up his Ma Vlast (My Homeland) with the story

of a dishonoured maid wreaking vengeance on men, preceded the Dvorák and was deftly handled by the musicians

whose massed ranks included numerous Youth Symphony members. It is a strutting, lively creation and the splendidly

tight ensemble made it work.

Pre-intermission it was a different story, as the concert opened with a chilly, mechanical treatment of the orchestral

suite from Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen. With music taken mostly from the first act, it's meant to create

lots of arboreal atmosphere with the jolly sounds of little creatures. Instead, the TSO kept its emotions in check and the

supposedly pleasing passages as the animal world frolics became jarring statements.

Sarah Chang

Toronto Star November 12, 2004

Page 2 of 2

The Toronto premiere of a work by contemporary composer Krystof Maratka, commissioned by the TSO and two other

organizations, was mysterious. Otisk had the sub-title `A Paleolithic stratum of pre-instrumental music,' which we were

told was to be an exploration of what music might have been like 80,000 years ago. All the speculative cacophony,

martial hand-percussion and broody quiet moments merely suggested a possible score for the next Jurassic Park

movie.