KEY POINTS:
Next Wednesday, Manukau's Genesis Theatre hosts a young violinist who has become as well known for his eccentric YouTube postings as for his considerable achievements on the concert stage.
In fact, some might find it difficult to reconcile the fright-wigged Chuanyun Li in an airport lounge fiddling frenzy with the musician who occasioned virtuoso Ruggiero Ricci's comment that: "If China wants to have a great violinist, they have one. All they have to do is look after him."
Li sounds weary when I talk to him. He is in Hong Kong and worries about the aftermath of the great earthquakes in southwest China.
"I was almost going to travel to those parts," he says quietly.
Music has been Li's life since the age of 3, when his parents gave him his first violin. It has been up to him to fulfil their dreams. "They both wanted to do more with their music, but the Cultural Revolution prevented them from doing so."
His days at the Beijing Conservatory had him sharing the same concert programme as the great Lang Lang, but never in the same work. "It is a great wish of mine that one day we might play sonatas together," Li says.
Moving to New York and the Juilliard School of Music at the age of 17 was a nerve-racking experience.
"My English was not so good. I found it difficult to communicate and make friends. I thought the Americans might look down on me. I am quite a sensitive guy," he laughs.
It was in the US that Li gained the sponsorship of the Stradivari Society, which has loaned him a number of precious old instruments, although he will also bring a modern Chinese violin to New Zealand. "They are fresh and powerful in tone," Li says of the homegrown instruments.
"I also like to help develop new Chinese luthiers and, in that way, help our nation."
There is also homegrown music on Wednesday's programme, a solitary offering in a staunchly occidental playlist that ranges from a Prokofiev Sonata to showpieces by Kreisler and Saint-Saens.
It is Sunshine over Tashkurgan by Chen Gang, the composer of the Butterfly Lover's Concerto, a man who Li says has his "very special way of combining humour and philosophy".
Li pauses, concerned he might sound a little too serious, although he comes up with an apt description for the Franz Waxman Carmen Fantasia which will close his concert.
"It's really showy," he laughs. "Just the piece to take you to the end of a 100m dash."
Who: Chuanyun Li and Rosemary Barnes
Where and when: Genesis Theatre, TelstraClear Pacific, Wednesday 7.30pm
