A saxophone museum documenting the life of Taiwan’s first saxophone maker and the development of saxophone making in Houli District (后里), Greater Taichung, opened to the public yesterday.
The Chang Lien-cheng (張連昌) Saxophone Museum is named after a local resident who made the first saxophone in Taiwan on his own, sparking the development of the saxophone production industry in Houli, which is now one of the largest centers of saxophone production in the world.
TOURIST-FRIENDLY
Photo: CNA
Located in a town nicknamed “Musical Instrument Town,” the museum will display a collection of saxophones. Previously a memorial hall dedicated to Chang, the museum site now has a new two-story building, a concert hall and a tourist-friendly factory that allows visitors to see how the instrument is made.
“The museum is certainly not the only saxophone museum in Taiwan, but it is definitely the only one with a lot of stories to be shared,” Wang Tsai-jui (王彩蕊), Chang’s granddaughter-in-law, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Chang, born in 1912, was a farmer’s son who abandoned the family’s farm to become a painter. He later joined a band when he was in his 20s.
“No one during the 1930s was actually playing any kind of Western instruments, but Chang was fascinated by the saxophone,” Wang said.
DETERMINED
When Chang’s saxophone was damaged in a fire, he was determined to build the brass tube by himself. He started from observing the shape of the instrument on canvas.
Three years into the making of the saxophone in 1948, he lost the sight in his right eye when a piece of copper flashed into his eyeball. However, the incident did not stop Chang from continuing his pursuit and the first locally made saxophone was finished shortly after the accident.
“The museum is really about showing the personality and perseverance of a person who loved music so much,” Wang said.
Chang trained a number of apprentices, helping saxophone making become a lucrative export industry for Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1990s. It’s no longer as profitable as it once was because of competition from China.
Two of the must-see saxophones in the museum are an intricately made instrument with a dragon decoration on the tube, specially made by Chang, and a 160-year-old saxophone produced by saxophone inventor Adolphe Sax, which was found and bought by Wang’s family through laborious trips to Belgium, Wang said.
FASCINATING
“We knew from the start that the museum is about more than showcasing the locally made instruments; we want to tell the very first story of this fascinating instrument,” Wang said.
Wang’s four daughters are all saxophone players.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
The Civil Aviation Administration yesterday said that it is considering punishments for China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines for making hard landings and overworking their cabin crew when the nation was hit by Typhoon Kong-rey in October last year. The civil aviation authority launched an investigation after media reported that many airlines were forced to divert their flights to different airports or go around after failing to land when the typhoon affected the nation on Oct. 30 and 31 last year. The agency reviewed 503 flights dispatched by Taiwanese airlines during those two days, as well as weather data, flight hours
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in
RSS