Sarah Chang

Sarah Chang

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- One of classical music’s most talented young performing artists, Sarah Chang, will join the Alabama Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in a concert presented by The University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences School of Music under the direction of ASO’s Richard Westerfield, on Sunday, March 14, in the Moody Music Concert Hall on the UA campus at 3 p.m.

The ASO will open the concert program, sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation, with Bruch’s lyrically beautiful Concerto no. 1 for Violin in G minor, featuring Chang. Symphony no. 10 in E minor by Shostakovich will follow on the program after intermission.

Chang performs with many of the world’s most elite symphony orchestras, including the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, the San Francisco Symphony, and the National Symphony. In 2003-2004 she will tour Europe with the London Symphony and Sir Colin Davis, and tour Europe and the Far East with the English Chamber Orchestra under David Stern.

Chang is a well-known classical recording artist. Her latest releases are Fire and Ice, an album of popular shorter works for violin and orchestra, with Placido Domingo conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, and a recording of chamber music for strings with current and former members of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Chang is a past recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of the most prestigious awards given to instrumentalists, Gramophone’s “Young Artist of the Year” award and “Newcomer of the Year” honors at the International Classical Music Awards in London.

All ticket sales for the concert will benefit the UA School of Music. The concert is made possible by a donation of the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation, founded in 1990 by Gloria Moody and her husband, the late Tuscaloosa businessman Fran McCorkle Moody, to support the arts and music. In addition to bringing world-class performers to Alabama, the Moody Foundation endows UA scholarships and supports arts organizations in other areas of the country.

Tickets prices for the concert are $10 for students and $20 for general admission. To purchase tickets or for additional information, call 205/348-7111 or go to www.music.ua.edu.

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra has entertained audiences for over 70 years, playing a variety of classical and popular musical compositions and hosting performances by some of the finest guest artists in the nation. The 52 talented musicians of the ASO bring to life some of the world’s most treasured musical masterpieces and introduce listeners to exciting new works and composers, performing over 100 concerts for more than 100,000 persons annually.

Bios of Sarah Chang and Richard Westerfield:

Sarah Chang, Violin

Violinist Sarah Chang is recognized the world over as one of classical music’s most captivating and gifted artists. 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 Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the principal London orchestras and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.

Among the esteemed conductors with whom Chang has worked are Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and David Zinman. Notable recital engagements have included her Carnegie Hall debut and performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Barbican Centre in London, the Philharmonie in Berlin as well as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She has reached an even wider audience through her many television appearances, concert broadcasts and best-selling recordings for EMI Classics. The remarkable accomplishments of her career were recognized in 1999 when she received the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the most prestigious awards given to instrumentalists.

As a chamber musician, Chang has collaborated with such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman, Martha Argerich, Leif Ove Andsnes, Stephen Kovacevich, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Lars Vogt and the late Isaac Stern.

Chang’s 2003-04 season in North America features appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony and a tour with Orpheus that ends at Carnegie Hall. Abroad, she will tour Europe with the London Symphony and Sir Colin Davis (in addition to appearances at the Barbican), and tour Europe and the Far East with the English Chamber Orchestra under David Stern. She will also perform in Berlin, Dresden, St. Petersburg and Vienna.

Sarah Chang records exclusively for EMI Classics and has released three varied collections (Debut, Simply Sarah and Sweet Sorrow); the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony; the Paganini Concerto No. 1 and works of Saint-Saëns with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra; a coupling of the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole and the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 5 with the Royal Concertgebouw and Philharmonia orchestras led by Charles Dutoit; and the Mendelssohn and Sibelius Concertos with Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic. She has also recorded Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic; a Richard Strauss album, featuring his Violin Concerto and Violin Sonata, recorded with Wolfgang Sawallisch both at the piano and conducting the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra of Munich; and the Goldmark Violin Concerto, with James Conlon and the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne.

Her latest releases are Fire and Ice, an album of popular shorter works for violin and orchestra, with Placido Domingo conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, and a disc of chamber music for strings (Dvorak’s Sextet and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence) with current and former members of the Berlin Philharmonic. Her most recent release (May 2003) is the Dvorak Violin Concerto with the London Symphony and Sir Colin Davis, along with the Dvorak Piano Quintet (with Leif Ove Andsnes, Alex Kerr, Georg Faust and Wolfram Christ).

Born in Philadelphia to Korean parents, Sarah Chang began to study the violin at age 4 and within a year 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. Following high school graduation and completion of The Juilliard School’s pre-college program, she enrolled at Juilliard as a college student, where she studied with the late Dorothy DeLay.

Chang is a past recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Gramophone’s “Young Artist of the Year” award, Germany’s “Echo” Schallplattenpreis, “Newcomer of the Year” honors at the International Classical Music Awards in London, and Korea’s “Nan Pa” award.

Richard Westerfield, ASO Music Director

Richard Westerfield is widely regarded as one of America’s most gifted and versatile young conductors, noted for commanding performances of twentieth century music as well as unusually vibrant and stylish readings of baroque and classical repertoire. Over the course of just a few seasons he has already led many of North America’s finest orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra.

Maestro Westerfield came to national attention in 1993 when he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic conducting Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. Taking over for an ailing Erich Leinsdorf on very short notice, Westerfield was hailed three times in one week by the New York Times as a young conductor whose acute rhythmic sense, sound organizational ideas and clear technique contributed to a “splendid debut” with the orchestra. Since then Westerfield has conducted the Philharmonic on many occasions, including a critically praised subscription program featuring Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony—his fourth engagement with the orchestra in just five seasons.

In addition to his work with the New York Philharmonic, Richard Westerfield also enjoys a close relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Seiji Ozawa’s assistant until 1998. The Boston Globe wrote: “Seiji Ozawa holds the musicianship of Richard Westerfield in such high regard that he has promoted the BSO assistant conductor to associate conductor—the only other young musician to have held that post was Michael Tilson Thomas.” Westerfield’s performances with the BSO at Symphony Hall, Tanglewood, and in recital with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players received consistent critical praise.

Westerfield’s North American guest conducting schedule includes the leading orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Denver, Edmonton, Grand Rapids, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles (Pacific), Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Tucson and Tulsa, as well as the Tanglewood, Grant Park, Oregon Bach and Colorado summer music festival orchestras. He made his recording debut in 1997 with the Arabesque label, conducting New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s in music of Andre Previn, at the composer’s invitation, and returned again last season to perform and record Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, again for Arabesque, with soprano Heidi Grant Murphy. Recent invitations abroad include the Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney Symphony orchestras in Australia; the New Japan Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia orchestras in Asia; the Tapiola Sinfonietta, Koupio, Oulu and Gavle orchestras in Scandinavia; L’Orchestre de Bretagne in France; the BBC Wales in the United Kingdom; and the Prague Radio Orchestra at the Prague Autumn Festival.