Sarah Chang

SARAH CHANG BIOGRAPHY
Born Sarah Yong-chu Chang, 1980, in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of a music teacher, and a composer; career managed by her father. Education: Studies music at Juilliard School, New York City, and attends private school in Germantown, PA.

“…Sarah Chang played Shostakovich’s vast and challenging Violin Concerto No 1 so vigorously that even the most phlegmatic member of the audience must have been tempted to jump up and cheer at the end.
Financial Times, 09 May 2007, Richard Fairman

(Shostakovich, Violin Concerto No.1: BBC Symphony Orchestra / Vassily Sinaisky)

Violinist Sarah Chang is recognized 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 astonish.

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, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra amongst others. The esteemed conductors with whom she has worked include Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas and David Zinman.

This season, Sarah Chang will return to the London Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Washington National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra amongst others. Sarah Chang will also for the first time play/direct Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on tour in the US and in Asia with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, then in Europe and the UK with the English Chamber Orchestra. These tours coincide with her most recent release for EMI Classics - Vivaldi Four Seasons/Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

In 2008 - 2009, Sarah Chang will also perform the world premiere of a new work by composer Christopher Theofanidis with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She will revisit the Philharmonia Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others.

In recital last season, Sarah Chang toured Europe and the US (culminating in a performance at Carnegie Hall) with pianist Ashley Wass and included in her programme a new sonata commissioned specially for her in memory of the late Isaac Stern by the American composer Richard Danielpour. In past seasons, her recitals have included performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Barbican Centre in London, the Philharmonie in Berlin as well as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

As a chamber musician, Sarah Chang has collaborated with such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman, Martha Argerich, Leif Ove Andsnes, Stephen Kovacevich, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Lars Vogt and the late Isaac Stern. In 2005/06 Sarah Chang toured with members of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with a Sextet programme in summer festivals leading to a concert at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Sarah Chang records exclusively for EMI Classics. Her latest release, the widely lauded Vivaldi Four Seasons with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has reached the Billboard charts in the USA and continues to top the best selling charts internationally. Other recordings include Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.1 and Shostakovich Violin Concerto No.1 live with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Fire and Ice, an album of popular shorter works for violin and orchestra with Placido Domingo conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, the Dvorak concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis, as well as several chamber music and sonata discs with artists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Lars Vogt and members of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Born in Philadelphia to Korean parents, Sarah Chang began her violin studies at age 4 and promptly enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music, where she studied with the late Dorothy DeLay. Within a year she had already performed with several orchestras in the Philadelphia area. Her early auditions, at age 8, for Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti led to immediate engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Sarah Chang has reached an even wider audience through numerous television and radio programs, concert broadcasts and best-selling records for EMI Classics throughout Europe, North America and the Far East. Along with Pete Sampras and Wynton Marsalis, she has been a featured artist in Movado’s global advertising campaign “The Art of Time.” In 2006, Sarah Chang was named by Newsweek as one of the Twenty Top Women on Leadership and in March this year, Sarah Chang was honoured to be named as a Young Global Leader for 2008 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for her professional achievements, commitment to society and potential in shaping the future of the world.

In 2005, Yale University named a chair in Sprague Hall in honor of Sarah Chang. In June 2004, she was given the honor of running with the Olympic Torch in New York, and became the youngest person ever to receive the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame award. She is a past recipient of Gramophone’s “Young Artist of the Year” award, Germany’s “Echo” Schallplattenpreis, “Newcomer of the Year” honours at the International Classical Music Awards in London, and Korea’s “Nan Pa” award. In July 2005 she was awarded the Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana Prize, and in 1999 she received the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the most prestigious awards given to instrumentalists.

Sarah Chang Violin Discography
Antonio Vivaldi:Four Seasons
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
EMI Classics
2007
The Best of Sarah Chang
Compilation Album
EMI Classics
2007
Sergey Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich:Violin Concertos
Berlin Philharmonic / Sir Simon Rattle
EMI Classics
Live Recording
2006
Andrew Lloyd Webber:Phantasia / Phantom of the Opera
Shawn Lee, Julian Lloyd Webber, New London Orchestra
EMI Classics
2005
Maurice Ravel, César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns:French Sonata Album
Lars Vogt
EMI Classics
2004
Antonín Dvorák:Violin Concerto / Quintet
London Symphony / Sir Colin Davis / Leif Ove Andsnes
EMI Classics
2003
Antonín Dvorák, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Sextets
Berlin Philharmonic Members
EMI Classics
2002
Maurice Ravel, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonín Dvorák, Jules Massenet, Pablo de Sarasate
Fire and Ice / Show Pieces
Berlin Philharmonic / Placido Domingo
EMI Classics
2002
Richard Strauss:Violin Concerto / Sonata
Bayerische Rundfunk / Wolfgang Sawallisch
EMI Classics
2000
Karl Goldmark: Violin Concerto
Gurzenich Orchestra / James Conlon
EMI Classics
2000
Sweet Sorrow:Compilation Album
EMI Classics
1999
Felix Mendelssohn, Jean Sibelius:Violin Concertos
Berlin Philharmonic / Mariss Jansons
Live Recording
EMI Classics
1998
Simply Sarah:Show Pieces
EMI Classics
1999
Lalo / Vieuxtemps:Symphonie Espagnole / Violin Concerto
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Philharmonia Orchestra / Charles Dutoit
EMI Classics
Live Recording
1995
Vaughan Williams:Lark Ascending
London Philharmonic / Bernard Haitink
EMI Classics
1995
Paganini / Saint Saens:Violin Concerto
Philadelphia Orchestra / Wolfgang Sawallisch
EMI Classics
1994
Tchaikovsky / Brahms:Violin Concerto / Hungarian Dances
London Symphony / Sir Colin Davis / Jonathan Feldman
EMI Classics
1993
Concert for Planet Earth:Compilation – Puccini, Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Bernstein, and many more
Placido Domingo / Wynton Marsalis and many others
Sony BMG Masterworks
Live Recording
1992
Debut:Show Pieces
Sandra Rivers
EMI Classics
1992
DVDs
Spanish Night:Sarasate / Carmen / Ziguenerweisen / Thais Meditation
Berlin Philharmonic / Placido Domingo / Ana Maria Martinez
Live from the Waldbuhne Stage
2003
Niccolò Paganini:Violin Concerto
Berlin Philharmonic / Zubin Mehta
Live at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence
1995