Article content For most of us, a European vacation wouldn’t include playing at a concert hall, especially as a teen. But for Julin Cheung, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s new assistant principal flute and piccolo player and at 17 the orchestra’s youngest member, it’s almost second nature because he’s been performing so long. played a piccolo solo at Saturday’s VSO free concert at Sunset Beach, in front of a crowd of more than 30,000.
“I really enjoyed it,” Cheung said from Germany. “I’d just bought a new piccolo, so I was a little bit worried because wood instruments can warp or crack when they’re new, so you have to be careful. “But it’s a really nice atmosphere.
I’ve played a couple of times in an orchestra outdoors, at amphitheatres, but this is the first time I’ve played solo (outdoors) and it’s really fun, a really good energy.” His solo was from the third movement of Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto in C Major (RV 443). “It felt really good to perform a solo in front of so many people, but I’m glad it was a short movement, two and a half minutes, not too stressful.
” Cheung, an only child, flew with his parents to Berlin on Monday and stood among throngs of soccer fans on Tuesday watching the Euro soccer championship on a giant screen at the Brandenberg Gate. The family took a train to Munich on Wednesday, ahead of Cheung performing at the in Switzerland as part of a junior orchestra program. “We thought we would just tour around.
