Beginning in her childhood when she made her New York Philharmonic debut as an 8-year-old in 1988, the violinist Sarah Chang has played her way across stages, continents and cultures.
But despite all the thousands of miles Chang and her violins have logged over the years, this weekend will be her first visit to Montana, when she comes to play an afternoon performance at Flathead Valley Community College’s Wachholz College Center this Sunday, Sept. 22.
“Frankly, since it’s my first time in Montana, I’m excited … I’ve been in this business for, I don’t know how many decades, and I’m still making debuts and going to cities for the first time,” Chang said recently in a telephone interview. “I’m really, really happy about this, and I’m really looking forward to playing in your city.”
Born in Philadelphia to musician parents originally from Korea, Chang’s early rise to success and stardom earned her the label of a prodigy. She began studying at Juilliard while she was 6 years old. Her debut album, recorded while she was 9, was released when she was 11. As an adult, Chang has continued to build on her musical and professional resume, earning recognition from the World Economic Forum, Harvard University, Yale University, Hollywood Bowl’s Hall of Fame, and international musical bodies in Italy, Germany and Korea. In 2011, the United States Department of State named her one of the country’s official artistic ambassadors. That honor came a little under 10 years after Chang performed in Pyongyang, North Korea, with a South Korean orchestra, which shared the stage with a North Korean orchestra.
For her Kalispell show, Chang will share the stage with her longtime friend Sonya Ovrutsky Fensome, a pianist who teaches at College of the Holy Cross and directs the M. Steinert and Sons Piano Academy in Boston. September is when Chang’s touring seasons typically starts to pick up, and so her arrival in the Flathead will be preceded by a stop in Atlanta, where she and Fensome will play at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
The two will open with Sonatensatz in C minor by the 19th century German composer Johannes Brahms, before continuing with Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in D minor. After an intermission, the performance will conclude with Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in D Major.
Chang says that if she were forced to choose just one composer that speaks to her heart, and whose work amounts to her love language, it would be Brahms. He’s a composer that she said a performer can’t just bulldoze their way through as a kid or a young student. “There seems to be this level of respect and gravitas that musicians hold for Brahms, and it’s one of those things that you just don’t plow your way through it. You have to have gone through life enough to understand the nuances and the intricacies.”
There are inferences and subtleties in his work, which she has now been playing for decades. This particular sonata is one of her all-time favorites in the form.
“He’s one of those rare composers where, yes, he’s a classical composer, but he’s also such a romantic,” she said. “And every single note that he wrote, it’s just so lush and gorgeous and unapologetically romantic. And just, every note that he wrote means something.”
The sonata by Prokofiev, a Russian composer who worked in the 20th century, should offer a marked contrast and set the show up to end with a surge of excitement.
“It’s a nice balance, where we have that sort of serene, noble, beautiful first half and an all-out, you know, crazy, exciting fireworks display of the Prokofiev second half. So, it’s a nicely balanced program,” Chang said.
These days, Chang splits her time between New York City and Philadelphia. Next month, she will perform in the United Arab Emirates, and she said she’ll finish off the year in Korea, where her tour will run through the holidays. At times when her tours have stretched into December, which also happens to be the month of her birthday, she’s found herself in hotel rooms, decorating plants to infuse some holiday spirit in her travels.
Chang said that she still has family in Korea, which makes playing there over the holidays less of a cause for her to feel self pity, and more something that can be a fun experience.
After a past performance in Seoul, she said cousins burst backstage with presents and started an impromptu Christmas celebration.
“We got to celebrate Christmas backstage in a dressing room together, and it was really, really sweet,” she said.
Of late, she said she’s been savoring the full return of post-pandemic concert hall programming, and the opportunity to perform with people, like Fensome, who she loves working with.
“It doesn’t even feel like work with her. It’s like getting together with one of your close friends,” Chang said.
Friendship is also an idea she evokes in describing her relationship with the Brahms and Prokofiev pieces in her repertoire — both of which will be heard in Kalispell this weekend — saying that they need the same attention, care and empathy that an old friend might.
“There’s a lot of give and take,” Chang said. But alongside that overarching idea of a friendship with the music, Chang said she continues to learn new dimensions of the pieces with each performance and rehearsal.
“It’s really interesting that it doesn’t even seem to matter if you’ve performed the piece 100 times, or 500 times, there’s always something new going on,” she said, “which is, you know, just very humbling.”
Sarah Chang and Sonya Ovrutsky Fensome will perform this Sunday, Sept. 22, at FVCC’s Wachholz College Center at 3 p.m. For more information, go to https://www.wachholzcollegecenter.org/Online/default.asp