Shanghai Daily news

She began playing the violin before she was four and has won awards all over the world. Now Hilary Hahn has added Shanghai to her crowded concert schedule, writes Michelle Qiao.
 ``The young Menuin is back'' was the reaction of Shanghai music critic Li Yanhuan when he first heard the playing of American violinist Hilary Hahn -- over the telephone -- in 1997. But this Sunday, a Shanghai audience will be able to hear the Grammy Award-winning musician in person when she gives her first recital in the city.
``I thought she was just another ordinary, if beautiful, violinist when I saw her innocent face on her first album,'' says Li, who is also council member of Shanghai Symphonic Music Lovers' Association.
``I did not buy the album but the difficult solo sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach I saw she had chosen shocked me. Most musicians would only dare to record those pieces in their middle age. She was only 17.''
Then a violinist friend played for Li over the telephone, one of the tracks Hahn had recorded and he was enraptured immediately. ``I heard her only for three minutes and I thought the playing was so extraordinary,'' Li recalls. ``My friend told me it was from that album and I became a fan of Hahn. Now I have all her seven albums.''
Born in Virginia in 1979, Hahn began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday. Later she studied with the legendary Jascha Brodsky, who was the last surviving student of the great Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye.
Although she completed the course requirements at the Curtis Institute at the age of 16, she remained at the school for several more years, taking additional elective courses in languages and literature, coaching regularly with Jaime Laredo and studying chamber music with Felix Galimir and Gary Graffman.
Hahn's musical career has been stunningly successful and she has won many awards. Her first album won Diapason's 1997 ``Prix d'Or of the Year.'' Her next recording of pieces by Beethoven and Bernstein, brought her first Grammy nomination as well as a second Diapason ``Prix d'Or,'' the Echo Klassik award for 1999 and Gramophone Magazine's ``CD of the Month.''
Her third release of concertos by Samuel Barber and Edgar Meyer won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and the Cannes Classical Award. Her 2001 recording of the concertos of Brahms and Stravinsky won her a Grammy Award.
``She always brings new things to audience,'' says Li. ``She chose the amazingly long violin concerto by Elgar but her playing was not boring at all -- it was very warm.''
Hahn also maintains a busy concert schedule with appearances in front of orchestras worldwide. They include the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony and the New Jersey Symphony. She was named ``America's best young classical musician'' by Time magazine in 2001.
For the first half of her Shanghai concert Hahn will present Mozart's ``Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major,'' Bach's ``Sonata No. 3 in C Major for Solo Violin.'' In the second half she will play Mozart's ``Sonata for Violin and Piano in E Minor'' and Faure's ``Sonata No. 1 in A Major for Violin and Piano.''
``This is a heavy, challenging program list which includes a variety of styles,'' says Li. ``The Bach sonata is one of his most difficult violin piece. Mozart looks easy but is actually a trap for performers. It's not easy to perform four sonatas in one concert but Hahn always plays in a natural way and it seems that all the music is already locked in her heart.''

Date: May 15, 7:15pm
Venue: Shanghai Concert Hall, 523 Yan'an Rd E.
Tickets: 80-400 yuan
Tel: 6386-2836