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Zhi-Jong Wang

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The Chinese violinist Zhi-Jong Wang, an artist to watch,records the Sibelius and Stravinsky violin concertosWinner of the junior division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in 1998, and highly praised by Menuhin himself, the Chinese violinist Zhi-Jong Wang here plays two twentieth-century violin concertos. Sibelius set out in his youth to become a violin virtuoso, and his only concerto clearly meant a great deal to him. Written in 1903, after the premiere of his Second Symphony, it pours out all the expressive and compositional resources of a composer entering full maturity. Zhi-Jong Wang made a striking Japanese debut in 2014 playing the same concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Tadaaki Otaka. Stravinsky’s concerto was premiered in 1931 – just under thirty years later – yet the two works could hardly differ more in tonal language and style. Wang plays them both with cla