HONOLULU SYMPHONY Sarah Chang spends her free time surfing when in Hawaii.

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Chang makes most
of Hawaii concerts

Sarah Chang happily admits she has a secret life in Hawaii and the violin virtuoso suspects the Honolulu Symphony (which she performs with this weekend) changed its schedule to keep the Philadelphia resident under control.

Violinist performs Violinist Sarah Chang and the Honolulu Symphony Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall When: 8 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $26, $38, $48, $56 and $69 Call: 792-2000

"I think they swapped the Sunday-Tuesday performances to Friday-Saturday because of what I did the last time I played there," Chang says in a telephone interview from South Dakota. "I always caused them so much trouble on those free Mondays."

What was Chang's heinous offense? Surfing!

"I learned to surf on the last Monday, the day before my concert, and I stayed out most of the day," she said, laughing. "When I woke up, I could barely lift my arms and when I told (conductor Samuel Wong), well, he was, well, concerned."

A couple years earlier, Chang went paragliding over Waikiki the day before her concert.

"Maybe the symphony decided three times would not be a charm," said the wannabe Gidget.

Chang first played Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 at 5 years old as her audition for entry into Juilliard, where she studied with the renowned Dorothy DeLay. Now an established international star, Chang's been touring since she was 8, when auditions before Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti won her solo engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, respectively.

As she's grown, the tours have lengthened; the European and Asian circuits can go on for weeks. Chang has "no idea" how many performances she does annually.

"The great points of this career completely overshadow the little nagging things," she said. "It comes down to how you feel on stage for those 40 minutes while you're playing that concerto."

Part of that calm demeanor she attributes to supportive parents in her hometown of Philadelphia.

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HONOLULU SYMPHONY The violinist enjoys playing with a new conductor and orchestra every week while on tour.

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Dad Min-Soo, a professional violinist and Juilliard grad, was Chang's first teacher. When she was 5, he handed her over to Juilliard and DeLay and didn't meddle. Chang says her approach to music is mostly intuitive.

"I make sure I understand the overall structure of a piece and grasp its harmony," she said. "That's about as far as I go on the intellectual side.

"I don't like analyzing these things. I do the bare minimum." When it comes to interpretation, Chang says she just plays and it "goes from there."

"I think emotion is everything," she says. "When you get the notes, you've just scratched the surface. The best things happen spontaneously, on stage. I'm doing two concerts in Honolulu and I guarantee none will be the same.

"Humans are not machines."

Chang says the hundreds of thousands of miles annual traveling, "comes with my life."

"I can't imagine doing anything else," she said. "It's like being an athlete. You stay in shape, maintain yourself and, for me, my fingers."

Maintaining a high performance level is easy.

"I'm with a new group every week, a different orchestra and conductor, so no way can I get bored," she said. "Every week, I start the rehearsal process all over again. And I switch repertoire a lot."

HER HONOLULU performances includes Rimsky-Korsakov's Overture to May Night, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67, and one of her personal favorites, Shostakovich's Violin Concerto, op. 99.

"Sometimes, I think that was written for me," she said. "He had to work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, composing in communist Russia during the Stalin era. He always had someone looking over him and was probably threatened with death if his music didn't seem nationalistic.

"There's so much pain and depth and drama in this piece," she said. "It's ... tremendously aggressive; you can feel his anger ... "

Chang will play the concerto on a formidable Giuseppe ("del Gesu") Guarneri violin from the 1730s.

"It's awesome," she says. "I've learned all its little secrets and colors, and just where it can be pushed. It has that big, bold sound and great G string that all del Gesus have, but it also has sweetness and clarity."

Obtaining the violin was made possible through the help of the late violinist Isaac Stern.

"I am very lucky to have it ..." she said. "Its history is daunting."

A just-finished recording with "a living and breathing composer" suggests Chang may be heading in a new direction.

"The whole process of watching them work, then having them scratch it and start again fascinates me," said Chang, who worked with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. He rewrote "The Phantom of the Opera" into concerto form. "There were times when I wanted to jump out the window when he kept starting over ... but it makes you be so flexible."

Monday morning after her concert here, Chang will be up early.

"I hope the surf is up," she said, "because I'm going to be out there."