Ray Chen
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VideoRay Chen's practice challenge: Paganini Sauret Cadenza
The violinist lays bare his practice process, beginning from scratch on one of the steepest technical challenges in the repertoire – the Émile Sauret cadenza for Paganini’s First Violin Concerto.
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Ray Chen plays Paganini in the first round of Menuhin Competition 2008
For Ray Chen, the 2008 Menuhin Competition which turbo boosted his career started here, with Paganini’s Caprice no.5. Chen, then 19, won the event before going on to also win the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition.
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Video: Ray Chen entertains airline passengers with Bach
The violinist plays the Gavotte from Partita no.3 aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon which had to take an unscheduled stop at Porto
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Ray Chen on Strads, modern instruments and finding his sound
In the second extract from his cover feature interview in the May 2018 Strad, the violinist talks playing Strads and modern instruments, and personalising his sound
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Ray Chen: Waltzing Matilda in quartet arrangement
Ray Chen, cover star of The Strad’s May 2018 issue, with his quartet, Made in Berlin, which features members of the Berlin Philharmonic: Noah Bendix-Balgley, Amihai Grosz and Stephan Koncz. The track is included on Ray Chen’s new album ‘The Golden Age’. The arrangement is by the quartet’s
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Ray Chen: 'Failure was so much more meaningful towards my overall development'
In this extract from a candid and wide-ranging interview, the violinist remembers leaving his home town of Brisbane, Australia, at the age of 16 to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia – and immediately feeling out of his depth
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Win a signed copy of Ray Chen's new CD
In the May 2018 issue of The Strad, Ray Chen talks about his feats, failures and the digital revolution that has turned him into a violinist of a new generation. ’I didn’t want to wait until I had an established career,’ he says. ‘I w
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Ray Chen plays the Sarabande from Bach's Partita no.2 in D minor
‘I’ve always been inspired by Bach’s musical connection to the divine. One might not be religious or devout but one cannot deny the presence of a higher force within his music,’ writes Ray Chen in the description of his latest video, filmed on 12 January 2018
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Ray Chen teaches Harmonics
In the latest in Ray Chen’s ‘Masterclass Monday’ YouTube series, he looks at natural and artificial harmonics and offers some hard-won tips on getting them right
