Angelin Chang -- GRAMMY® Winning Pianist

"She phrases with natural urgency and tames every pianistic beast before her. " - -Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The challenge for the performer is to make these subtle mood shifts and color changes seem natural as well as make the technical passages sound seamless. And pianist Angelin Chang did all of this with style and grace....mesmerizing....magical." - -ClevelandClassical

Angelin Chang brought a lot of technology to her recital at Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, March 24. A Yamaha concert grand piano wired for midi held conversations with three laptop computers and projected the results onto a large screen for some of the works on the program, and Chang used an iPad instead of sheet music during one selection. The recital was the third and final concert of the Tri-C Classical Piano Series for this season and attracted a good-sized audience.

The images, generated first during Chang’s performance of Liszt’s transcription of J.S. Bach’s organ prelude and fugue in a minor, were the work of Cleveland State University faculty artist Qian Li — a set of slides ordered and superimposed at the behest of Chang’s fingers as channeled into the laptops and translated by computer software.

Chang, who appeared in a red gown with billowing cape (reminiscent of a purple number her mentor Yvonne Loriod wore back in 1978 in this same hall when she played works by her husband, Olivier Messiaen), played the prelude and fugue with clarity and authority while the screen displayed aqueous images reminiscent of protozoa and other single-celled creatures.

If you like images with your music, you would have found this fascinating even if musical events didn’t seem to precisely inspire parallel imagery. If you prefer monomedia art, you might have found the images distracting (simple fix: close your eyes!)

The screen was blank for Chang’s performance of Beethoven’s “Grand” Sonata in E-flat, op. 7, a sensitive reading of a beautiful, classically-proportioned work that respected the composer’s lyrical intentions and graceful musical gestures.

After intermission, Chang jettisoned the cape for a brilliant reading of Robert Schumann’s Papillons, which inspired the computers to show images celebrating the ambiguity of Schumann’s title — butterflies of course, but also hazy scenes of a masked ball (with guests wearing “papillons”, or masks in the shape of butterflies).

The pianist then launched into a lecture on Messiaen and birdsongs accompanied by views of webpages and sound files to illuminate the next piece on the program, l’Alouette Lulu from Catalogue d’Oiseaux, accompanied by images of ponds, birds in flight (a loop) and natural scenes. Chang’s playing was perfectly evocative of the sounds of the bird in question and her contrasting voicings of the high and low registers in Messiaen’s rather lengthy avian portrait were lovely. - Cleveland Classical

Last Sunday afternoon the Suburban Symphony presented an interesting “All Russian Program” at the University School Shaker Campus’s Conway Hall, an acoustically effective six hundred seat auditorium. The highlight was an excellent performance of the rarely heard Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra, Opus 35 with Angelin Chang as piano soloist. Chang chairs the Keyboard Department at Cleveland State University. The unusual instrumentation made for a transparent orchestral texture that combined well with Chang’s wonderful musical exuberance and skill.

Chang’s alert and intense performance of the opening Allegretto fairly sparkled and seemed to sweep up the orchestra in her wake. The piano’s charming first theme, supporting itself with a walking bass hinting at pop music, was delightful, particularly in the right hand octave passages. Principal trumpet Eric Dina joined the piano solo at the start, even to the point of canonically anticipating some of her melodic material. The even more animated second theme, both tuneful and playful, was answered by soloistic material in the cello section.

The slow and expressive second movement, Lento, began with a high register first violin lyrical tune. The piano accompanied with continuous eighth notes. After virtuosic piano octave passages in both hands, the trumpet entered with its own melody, followed by a dialogue with the piano and further soloistic cello writing. Dynamic balance was perfect throughout.

The tiny third movement, Moderato, served as brief introduction to the excitable and frothy fourth movement, Allegro con brio. The trumpet took on an equal role with the piano, rising in energy and register to fanfare passages, and both soloists had lively interchanges with the strings. Chang scintillated in the extensive closing cadenza. This was a truly inspired performance throughout. - Cleveland Classical