REVIEW: Ray Chen's violin recital bridges generations and music tastes
Fifteen years since he was last in Manila, world-renowned Taiwanese-Australian violinist and YouTuber Ray Chen came back to give his first solo recital in the country, brought about by Film Concerts PH. For a little over two hours, Chen, accompanied on the piano by award-winning soloist and chamber musician Chelsea Wang, demonstrated to a full house in the Proscenium Theater at Rockwell Center how a violin sounds when it's allowed to sing.
Walking onstage, the duo was greeted with thunderous applause by an audience of multiple generations. Without fanfare, Chen and Wang launched into a whimsical piece by Mozart.
Classical music fans would have the appropriate technical words to describe his masterpiece. But for PhilSTAR L!fe's writer, whose extent of knowledge in this genre is limited to piano lessons in high school, Chen and Wang's rendition of Mozart's violin sonata sounded like a whimsical conversation between strings and percussion.
Equally entertaining was watching Chen and Wang's non-verbal communication as they played the 22-minute piece. With Chen's back to Wang, only the subtlest head shifts and side eyes indicated they were speaking to each other while letting their instruments do the actual talking.
Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg came next with a heavier, more robust piece that put on full display Chen's way of playing the violin with his whole body. From arched brows to fluid legwork, Chen’s movements mirrored the intensity of every chord.
His mastery of the violin is one reason Chen is a YouTube sensation: he's helping younger generations appreciate classical music.
Apart from the screen, though, Chen has performed onstage with some of the world's leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles philharmonic, and Filarmonica della Scala. Chen has also collaborated with several conductors, such as Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Jurowski, Sakari Oramo, and Kirill Petrenko.
The violinist is no stranger to major international musical events, either. He has played at France's Bastille Day celebration as well as at a Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm.
All in all, Chen has performed across Europe, the US, and Asia.
Like a true advocate of music, he's not content with just playing it. In 2023, Chen co-founded the practice app Tonic. The free app is a community-based learning tool, where fellow musicians can give real-time feedback on practice sessions, and users can set reminders to keep track of their musical progress.
Reaching across the threshold of classical music, Chen is also an ambassador for SONY Electronics and is a music consultant for Riot Games.
After the intermission, Chen tackled meditative, laid-back Bach. Based on how hard Chen worked his violin for the piece, it wouldn't have been surprising if, after the last note, the instrument emitted some hard-earned steam.
Closing the evening, Chen and Wang earned a standing ovation—the first of several that night—for their rendition of Pablo de Sarasate and his famous Playera, ending with "everyone's favorite", the heart-thumping Carmen Fantasy.
That wasn't the end of the night, though. Insistent applause brought Chen and Wang back onstage several times after their supposed last piece. The duo obliged their enthusiastic audience with the beloved theme from Howl's Moving Castle. Then to wrap up, they unpacked Claude Debussy's universal and timeless Clair de lune.
Live music, regardless of genre and audience demographic, has the power to keep people in the present. A theater setting, such as for Chen's recital, is even more potent since the audience is forbidden to use their phones throughout the performance. There is no choice but to fully enjoy the music. And for two hours Wednesday night, that was exactly what Chen's audience did.
Disclaimer: PhilSTAR L!fe is an official media partner of Film Concerts PH.