A saxophone museum documenting the life of Taiwan’s first saxophone maker and the development of saxophone making in Houli District (后里), Greater Taichung, opened to the public yesterday.
The Chang Lien-cheng (張連昌) Saxophone Museum is named after a local resident who made the first saxophone in Taiwan on his own, sparking the development of the saxophone production industry in Houli, which is now one of the largest centers of saxophone production in the world.
TOURIST-FRIENDLY
Photo: CNA
Located in a town nicknamed “Musical Instrument Town,” the museum will display a collection of saxophones. Previously a memorial hall dedicated to Chang, the museum site now has a new two-story building, a concert hall and a tourist-friendly factory that allows visitors to see how the instrument is made.
“The museum is certainly not the only saxophone museum in Taiwan, but it is definitely the only one with a lot of stories to be shared,” Wang Tsai-jui (王彩蕊), Chang’s granddaughter-in-law, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Chang, born in 1912, was a farmer’s son who abandoned the family’s farm to become a painter. He later joined a band when he was in his 20s.
“No one during the 1930s was actually playing any kind of Western instruments, but Chang was fascinated by the saxophone,” Wang said.
DETERMINED
When Chang’s saxophone was damaged in a fire, he was determined to build the brass tube by himself. He started from observing the shape of the instrument on canvas.
Three years into the making of the saxophone in 1948, he lost the sight in his right eye when a piece of copper flashed into his eyeball. However, the incident did not stop Chang from continuing his pursuit and the first locally made saxophone was finished shortly after the accident.
“The museum is really about showing the personality and perseverance of a person who loved music so much,” Wang said.
Chang trained a number of apprentices, helping saxophone making become a lucrative export industry for Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1990s. It’s no longer as profitable as it once was because of competition from China.
Two of the must-see saxophones in the museum are an intricately made instrument with a dragon decoration on the tube, specially made by Chang, and a 160-year-old saxophone produced by saxophone inventor Adolphe Sax, which was found and bought by Wang’s family through laborious trips to Belgium, Wang said.
FASCINATING
“We knew from the start that the museum is about more than showcasing the locally made instruments; we want to tell the very first story of this fascinating instrument,” Wang said.
Wang’s four daughters are all saxophone players.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS