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.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book
RSS