Sarah Chang is cited among the best violinists performing in the world today. Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of eight, she has appeared across the music capitals of Asia, Europe and America. 
Now 31 years old, Chang picked up the violin when she was just four, having already grown tired of the household piano. Quickly recognized as a child prodigy, Chang had signed to EMI Classics before she’d even reached double digits.
Still in her early 20s, Chang is seen here clutching her priceless 17th-century “Guarneri del Gesu” violin, given to her as a present by the late Ukrainian violinist and conductor Isaac Stern, who had a reputation for discovering new talent.
A life dedicated to the formality of classical music is very different from a life led in the frenetic city of Buenos Aires — where racy murals decorate the streets and the sound of tango music echoes in the air. But this is where Chang had chosen to fly for her Fusion Journey. 
There she met with local ensemble “Orquesta Tipica Andariega” (pictured), a band steeped in the traditions of tango. Together they would create a new piece of music inspired by this meeting of cultures. 
But first Chang, who confesses to be the owner of “two left feet,” would take a lesson in the other side of tango — dance. Over the course of her practice, she discovered that the dance moves have an “intimate relationship with the music,” which she would later draw on to enhance her musical performance. 
Out of her customary ball gown, Chang donned an outfit more befitting of a small local tango club, hidden along a narrow backstreet in Buenos Aires. 
Here, accompanied by “Orquesta Tipica Andariega,” she performed a tango standard, incorporating a solo violinist twist adapted especially for the fusion. Looking back, she says she was touched by the intimacy between the performers and the audience — an experience she is unfamiliar with in the world’s giant concert halls. 
Now, she says she tries to retain that Buenos Aires-style intimacy wherever she plays. “I try to connect with every single last person in the balcony on an emotional and personal level.” 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
- American violinist Sarah Chang flew to Buenos Aires to immerse herself in tango
- Chang collaborated with local ensemble to create fusion of musical styles
- She says that the process has given her new sense of intimacy with audience
Editor’s note: Part culture show, part travel show, over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the creative world on a journey of discovery to a location of their choice. There, they will learn from a different culture and create something new inspired by their experience. Watch the show every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from April 9 to May 18, during Connect The World, from 20:00 GMT.
(CNN) — Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of eight, Sarah Chang has grown through the weight of expectation to become one of the world’s great violinists.
Now aged 31, Chang was born in Philadelphia to a composer and music teacher of Korean descent. She first dabbled with the piano at the age of three, before opting for the violin a year later. By five she had been accepted into New York’s prestigious Juilliard School for Performing Arts.
By her own acknowledgment, the world of grand orchestras and opera houses that she has so long inhabited can be “very formal” and “exclusive.” This perhaps goes some way to explain her choice of destination for her “Fusion Journey” challenge: Buenos Aires.
Here, in the hot-blooded Argentinean capital, she would meet with local band “Orquesta Tipica Andariega,” to learn first-hand the sensual and mysterious art of tango.
See more Fusion Journeys
During her visit, Chang was challenged to produce a fusion of sound that blended the traditions of Western classical music with tango’s emotionally raw and folksy heritage. She says that the process has given her performance a new-found sense of intimacy that she’s carried ever since.
In her own words, Chang tells the story of her Fusion Journey.
Sarah Chang: I’ve been trained as a classical violinist my entire life. It’s all about structure, all about technique. It’s very much a polished profession. But tango music, although it has some classical elements, is very sexy and rough and, in a way, from the earth.
When you walk along the streets of Buenos Aires, fun is in the air. You see children with barely anything on their feet playing soccer, and there is music on every corner. They are playing all sorts of Latin sounds; they’re all dancing and drinking; they’re enjoying life; they are loving life.
One of the cornerstones of tango is definitely the dancing, so I first met up with dance instructor Nora Schvartz.
Now, I’m not really a dancer. I’m a very physical performer when I’m on stage, but of course tango is a completely different thing to thrusting around when you’re performing as a violinist.
I learned that the best tango dancers move not just with their legs and arms, but from their guts. That’s the sign of a true art form, and it’s the source of so much beauty, so much soul and passion.
Even though I absolutely cannot dance — just watch the footage! — I always thought that to experience the whole picture, you really have to open up your vulnerabilities, and sort of take that risk.
Sarah Chang, violinist
Read related: Photographer’s Lapland journey highlights global warming
Tango is — in a sense — imperfect … albeit beautifully imperfect. It’s not about being always metronomically on time, it’s about spontaneity and freedom.
I’ve worked, of course, with a piano and an orchestra before — but never with a band. All of a sudden I find myself rehearsing with the “Orquesta Tipica Andariega,” an extremely talented local tango group. So there I was, playing songs I’d never played before, alongside instruments I’d never heard before, with a group I’d never met before — it was thrilling!
The piece we chose for our fusion was by Carlos Gardel — the biggest name in the history of tango. The tune itself is very famous — it’s used in all these movies, you name it, any famous tango scene. But as far as I know, there is no version for a band with a solo violinist, so I asked a composer friend of mine to make an arrangement for us.
I was really thrilled with the result. We performed it in this intimate little club and it felt so immediate. Everyone was there, drinking wine, dancing, looking so happy. There were no rigid rules, none of this “clap here, oh you have to be quiet here.” Instead, the audience were whistling and yelling and clapping along — it felt like they were right up there with us.
Literally, if I just stretched my arm, I could touch them, they were so close. That sort of intimacy, that sort of physical closeness, the fact that they were dancing when we were playing, I just thought was so beautiful.
Sarah Chang, violinist
“Fusions” can often turn out badly — I can think of some fusion cuisine that I wish I could forget! But when each side brings just the right balance of their experience, their culture and personality, then I think it can be magical — and the only way you know it has worked is when everyone has a smile on their face.
Classical music is one of the world’s longest-standing traditional forms of music-making out there — and I don’t think it will, or should, change over night. There is a sort of purity in what classical musicians do that I cherish very much and want to preserve.
But the big thing that I really took from this experience is that sense of connecting with the audience. Quite often, in grand concert halls where everyone is wearing elegant ball gowns and black tails — that kind of old-Hollywood glamor — it can feel like there is a big distance between the audience and the performers, a sense of “look, but don’t touch.”
But with Argentinean tango, it’s the opposite. They are saying “please touch, please come into and share my world.” Now, every concert that I do, I try to utilize that, I try to connect with every single last person in the balcony on an emotional and personal level.
Lebanese photographer Roger Moukarzel swapped his warm studio in Beirut for the frozen mountains of Lulea in northern Sweden. He was here to create a series of striking images that would highlight the cause and effect of climate change. 
Lulea is part of the area commonly known as Lapland, a reindeer heartland and home, of course, to Santa Clause’s legendary workshop. 
people, whose ancestral lands spread across Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.” border=”0″ height=”360″ class=”c7″ width=”640″ />The reindeer share the region with the Sami, Europe’s northernmost officially indigenous people, whose ancestral lands spread across Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. 
Lulea’s subarctic climate, with mild summers and long, cold and snowy winters, make it an ideal habitat for reindeer. However, in recent years, locals have said that temperatures have been rising appreciably and, in 2010, a herd of more than 300 reindeer was reportedly lost when the ice cover of a frozen lake broke beneath their hoofs. 
Moukarzel takes a picture of a local Sami girl, against the dark, ethereal backdrop of the Lulea forest. 
Dressed in their rich and colourful traditional clothing, Moukarzel positioned his subjects against the intentionally incongruous image of a large, smoke-chugging factory. 
According to Moukarzel, this series of images will be the beginning of many. The 45-year-old photographer plans to travel across all five continents, exploring this theme among different climates and cultures. 
It will certainly not his first big adventure. At just 15, Moukarzel started his career with moving, sometimes haunting pictures of the Lebanese civil war. 
He says he has always been primarily interested in taking pictures of people and “capturing moments of humanity” — such as this striking exchange from 1978 between a Lebanese soldier and a woman in war-torn Beirut. 
After 15 years as a front-line photojournalist for news agencies Sygma and Reuters, Moukarzel hung up his hard hat in favor of high fashion, as he embarked on a new career in the world of fashion photography. 
people‘s preconceptions through his photography. This image was part of a series called "Turning Disabilities to Abilities." ” border=”0″ height=”360″ class=”c7″ width=”270″ />
Sanjeev Kapoor took up the Fusion Journey challenge, making a gastronomic pilgrimage from Mumbai, India’s most populous city, to the stylish Danish capital of Copenhagen. His task was to blend the contrasting culinary traditions of Denmark and India in one dish. ” border=”0″ height=”360″ class=”c6″ width=”640″ />Celebrity Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor took up the Fusion Journey challenge, making a gastronomic pilgrimage from Mumbai, India’s most populous city, to the stylish Danish capital of Copenhagen. His task was to blend the contrasting culinary traditions of Denmark and India in one dish. 
Mist shrouds the 17th-century spires of Copenhagen Harbor, a striking contrast to the sweltering streets of Mumbai. 
Hidden within a renovated warehouse, and overlooking the old port, is the two Michelin-starred Noma restaurant. The exterior’s crisp, clean lines reflect the philosophy of its head chef, Rene Redzepi, who has elevated the simplicity of Nordic cuisine to new gastronomic heights. 
Redzepi escorted Kapoor to the outskirts of Copenhagen to see some of his favorite foraging spots. The Noma founder has helped redefine Nordic cuisine, incorporating the region’s traditional use of wild ingredients with more contemporary cooking methods. 
The “New Nordic Cuisine” as it is known, could not be more contrasting to the traditional spicy fare served up on the streets of Mumbai. 
Back in the city, Kapoor nibbles on a variety of freshly plucked vegetables sold at one of Copenhagen’s many street-side grocery stores. 
Redzepi’s reverent attitude to nature does not just end in the kitchen. The Nordic masterchef is a keen cyclist, and opted to ferry Kapoor back to his restaurant in true Copenhagen style. 
The day’s new arrivals — squirrel and a selection of game birds — are delivered directly to Noma from the local farmlands. 
Redzepi’s strict emphasis on local, seasonal food, means that Noma’s menu often includes some unlikely ingredients … such as squirrel. 
Back in the kitchen, Redzip shows Kapoor how to prepare a simple dish in the Noma style, using only local ingredients. 
The result is a raw salad from the foraged vegetables the duo picked up earlier in the day, all assembled on the plate with a painterly flourish. 
Thomas Hampson, otherwise known as “America’s Baritone,” is seen here performing at the Waldolf Astoria in New York City. Having sung in more than 70 opera roles over a career that began in the early 1980s, Hampson is today regarded as one of the world’s foremost and prodigious operatic talents. 
While admired for his knowledge of Western classic music and its traditions, Hampson told CNN that he is also a great believer in experimentation and adaption. He is pictured here in a modern rendition on Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” 
The classically trained singer would need all the versatility he could muster during his “Fusion Journey” to Durban, where he teamed-up with famed South-African singers Ladysmith Black Mambazo — pictured here during a performance in December 2008. 
Founded by Joseph Shabalala (left) in 1960, Mambazo shot onto the world stage in 1986, when they collaborated with American singer-songwriter Paul Simon (center) on the hugely successful “Graceland” album. Here, the two are seen performing together at the Library Of Congress Gershwin Prize For Popular Song Gala in Washington, 2007. 
Before they began collaborating musically, Mambazo granted Hampson a tour of the small township where Shabalala was born and raised. Here, Shabalala points to the back wall of his old garage where the band would rehearse, and on which are inscribed the words: “My soul gives thanks to the Lord.” 
Local kids from the Claremont township look on intrigued. Before enjoying international success, the young band would perform their distinctive brand of traditional Zulu song at nearby singing competitions. 
Continuing his tour of the region, Mambazo took Hampson to see a group of young traditional Zulu dancers performing at a bar in Durban. 
At the Phezulu Cultural Park, on the outskirts of Durban, Hampson witnessed the performance of a Zulu marriage ritual, replete with full traditional dress and dancing. 
Back at Joseph Shabalala’s current home in the Durban suburb of Pinetown, Hampson and Ladysmith Black Mambazo begin rehearsing their new creation, combining elements of their contrasting musical traditions to create something new. 
As the day draws to a close, and with the Valley of a Thousand Hills spreading out behind them, the group perform their fusion creation. 
