"When I was a student I liked to ride my motorcycle very fast," says Roger Chih-I Chiang (
On Thursday, he will play his 18th century Italian violin in a free concert in front of Taipei's Chungshan Hall (
PHOTO: BRADLEY WINTERTON
"Performing solo is itself a form of risk," he says. "Last May, when I was going to play Paganini's First Violin Concerto, a piece composed especially to be difficult, I used to practice at home while watching TV. But playing it in public was another matter. It felt like a very real kind of danger."
Last year Chiang married Wong Song-en (
"Musicians are pretty much like ordinary people," Chiang says, "except that they have this extra way of expressing themselves. I feel I can indulge myself in music, and when I play the violin it lifts me out of my everyday worries. It's as if I'm limited in other things, but in music I'm free."
At the age of nine he entered a special program for musically talented children at Hsiushan Primary School, progressing to Jenai Junior High on the same program. He then played twice with the Asian Youth Orchestra, convened every summer following highly competitive auditions around the region.
One year, he nearly won the position of concert master. "But I wanted to have fun and hadn't practiced enough," he says. "So in the end a girl from Japan got the honor instead of me." "Teenagers all get out of control at times," he says. "But music taught me to welcome even my strongest emotions."
By the age of 18 he had already appeared as the soloist in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, and recalls that during his military service he played in front of former President Lee Tung-hui (
In addition to his work with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, he likes to improvise jazz, and plays second violin in the recently formed Taipei Quartet which specializes in classical chamber music.
"Of course someone else has usually written the notes," he says. "But it's up to musicians to bring them to life. That's why there are different recorded versions of so many classical pieces."
Returning to the subject of his violin, made in Florence in 1740, Chiang says it took him four days to choose it. In fact, he owns two violins, but even his second one, made in Japan, cost him more than his car.
On Thursday, Chiang will play the solo violin part in He Zhanhao (
Oct. 25 is Taiwan's Retrocession Day, marking the Japanese departure in 1945 after 50 years of colonial rule, and Chungshan Hall has many associations with this period.
The Taipei Symphony Orchestra, plus soloists, will perform in the square outside Chungshan Hall (nearest MRT stations Hsimen, Exit 5, or Taiwan National University Hospital) on Thursday, Oct. 25, beginning at 7.30pm, weather permitting.
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