Violinist Sarah Chang will join Palm Beach Symphony for season's opening concert

Celebrated violinist Sarah Chang will join conductor Gerard Schwarz to open Palm Beach Symphony’s 49th season on Nov. 6 at the Kravis Center.

“Sarah Chang, of course, is one of the great violinists appearing before the public today and someone I’ve worked with for many years. I love to hear her play,” Schwarz said in a statement. “Together, we will be performing [Max] Bruch’s first violin concerto, his most famous, and the one for which the composer himself said would be the lasting work for which he would be remembered.”

Chang, a Korean-American native of Philadelphia, has performed with many orchestras, conductors and accompanists in an international career spanning more than two decades. In 2011, she was named an official artistic ambassador by the U.S. State Department, and her many honors include receiving the Harvard University Leadership Award, Yale University dedicating a chair in Sprague Hall in her name, being the youngest person ever to receive the Hollywood Bowl’s Hall of Fame award and the Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana Prize in Siena, Italy.

Related coverage: Four Arts offers robust season of art, music, film and education

New works coming to ballet: Miami City Ballet's season will pay homage to giants, offer new works

Palm Beach Symphony:  Two performances of Handel's 'Messiah' presented

The New York Times said of Chang: “Her gifts are at a level so removed from the rest of us that all we can do is feel the appropriate awe and then wonder on the mysteries of nature.”

The opening concert adds two works to the symphony’s repertoire — “Rounds for String Orchestra,” by David Diamond, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.

“One of the most distinguished American composers of all time, David was a very dear friend and remarkable man. This is a charming, wonderful and energetic work that he wrote after the Minneapolis Symphony asked him for ‘a happy piece’ in 1944,” Schwarz said.

Schwarz described Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 "as one of the great masterpieces of orchestral literature.”

The opening concert is underwritten by Barbara and William Karatz Fund/William Karatz and Joan G. Smith in memory of William Karatz. Pre-concert music will be provided by the Dreyfoos School of the Arts String Orchestra under the direction of Music Director/Conductor Jeffrey Adkins in the lobby of Dreyfoos Hall beginning at 2 p.m.

The other Masterworks concerts for the season at the Kravis will feature pianist Garrick Ohlsson in Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto (Dec. 1); mezzo-soprano Susan Graham in arias by Mozart and Lehár (Jan. 30); pianist Misha Dichter in Gershwin's "Concerto in F" (March 14); violinist Joshua Bell in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (April 16); and pianist Maria João Pires playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 (May 15).

Tickets are $25 to $95 and are available at PalmBeachSymphony.org, by calling 561- 281-0145, and weekdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Palm Beach Symphony Box Office, 400 Hibiscus St., Suite 100, West Palm Beach. The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts is located at 701 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Violinist Sarah Chang will join Palm Beach Symphony for season opener