Sarah Chang/Sandra Rivers

An American violinist of Korean heritage, Sarah Chang was already a celebrity as a prepubescent soloist; unlike many child prodigies, she made the transition to adulthood painlessly, and remains a high-profile soloist on the international circuit. She began performing in public at age 5; within two years, she had won the Starling scholarship to the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. At age 8, after only two years of study at Juilliard during which she still regarded playing the violin as a hobby, she auditioned for conductors Zubin Mehta and ...