Ray Chen doesn’t define success by artistic accomplishments alone, although they are many.
The violinist — born in Taiwan and raised in Australia — won the 2008 International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition and the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition, where he was the youngest participant. In 2016, Chen was the youngest juror ever of the Menuhin Competition. He has collaborated with the greatest orchestras at the most famous concert halls.
For Chen, these achievements are a means to an end.
“My purpose is to introduce classical music to more people,” the 35-year-old says. “I’ve reached my goals and made new ones, but I’ve decided to quantify my success by the amount of positive impact I make through music.”
Expanding the audience for classical music means meeting people where they are. Chen does that with a dynamic social media presence on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where he has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, in part by using comedy to introduce newcomers to the art form.
“I see myself as the top of the funnel or at the gates to welcome people in. I remember not really seeing a guy at the gates as a kid, and even finding that the gates were kind of barred,” he says. “Music happens to be what I’m good at, and it’s what I can use as a connection point.”
A full-course menu
Chen’s funnel metaphor also applies to the way he constructs a concert program, which Boulder audiences will experience when he performs with collaborative pianist Julio Elizalde during the CU Presents Artist Series at Macky Auditorium on March 21.
“People don’t always want to go straight to the most complex thing,” he says. “They are at the end of a busy day, and I’m asking them to sit for 90 minutes or more in a concert hall. You have to coax them into that, so you can’t start with something too brilliant.”
The celebrated violinist likes to be eclectic, but in a thematic way, approaching the evening like a multi-course meal. The “appetizer” on the CU Presents program is the familiar “Devil’s Trill” Sonata by baroque composer Giuseppe Tartini.
“It’s a piece that can create a sort of dream state with its crazy virtuoso passages, and it makes an effective preview,” Chen says. “You know this won’t be a quick meal.”
Chen and Elizalde then move to the main course of a Beethoven violin sonata. (“Your ears and palate are now ready for that complex, more intense kind of flavor,” he says.) The Sonata in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2, is a serious piece, with an incredibly difficult piano part, and Chen says Elizalde plays Beethoven as well as any pianist he has heard.
After the intermission, Chen takes the stage alone to play J.S. Bach’s E-major Partita for Solo Violin. “This is like a lighter palate cleanser after we’ve had the heavy stuff with Beethoven,” he says. “The change of sonority to violin alone after hearing violin with piano, along with the brighter major key, creates a new beginning.”
Chen and Elizalde make the transition to “dessert” with the virtuosic-but-delightful La Ronde des Lutins (Dance of the Goblins) by 19th-century Italian composer Antonio Bazzini and an arrangement of a Slavonic dance by Antonín Dvořák.
“At that point, we have tried everything in the classical realm, so we’ll end with something completely different and outside of expectations,” Chen says of the concert finale, an arrangement of “Spain” by jazz musician Chick Corea. “That is classical musicians playing something non-classical, so listeners can hear that these guys can nail anything.”
Presenting this full-course menu requires a partnership with somebody who has the same vision, and Chen says Elizalde is that partner for him.
“Julio is not only an extremely gifted musician, but he has the strongest work ethic of anybody I have met,” Chen says. “He’s both my anchor and my launch pad.”
Ultimately, Chen says the collaborative partner needs to balance the other performer.
“We have to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and develop them together,” he says. “The spotlight might be on me, but he actually plays more notes than I do and creates the whole support structure in a piece like the Beethoven sonata.”
ON THE BILL: CU Presents Artist Series: Violinist Ray Chen and pianist Julio Elizalde. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant St. Tickets here.
