Salonen piece is canceled

The West Coast premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2007 composition “Homunculus for String Quartet” was supposed to have happened Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, at a concert performed by the Guarneri String Quartet and the Johannes String Quartet. But a death in the family forced Johannes Quartet violist Choon-Jin Chang to pull out of the performance.

While another violist, Lesley Robertson of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, filled in for Chang that night, the Salonen composition was canceled -- and Salonen told Times music critic Mark Swed that he did not expect that a replacement violist could learn the piece in time for tonight’s planned reprise of the performance at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

But the performance will go on: Although replacement Robertson was not ready to play the Salonen composition Wednesday, a UCLA spokeswoman said the can-do violist will perform the work at UCLA. “She’s practicing every minute,” the spokeswoman said.