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Tim Fain AMERICAN CLASSICS Violinist Tim Fain, winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, was seen on screen and heard on the sound track of the hit film Black Swan, and heard as the sound of ’s in the feature film Bee Season. His international engagements include soloist with the Ensemble (at Carnegie Hall), Baltimore Symphony with , The Hague and Mexico City Philharmonics, of St. Luke’s, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Ravinia RIVER OF Festival, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Kennedy Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and many others, in works ranging widely from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Corigliano and Danielpour. His multi-media solo evening, Portals, features the LIGHT World Première of a new work written for him by Glass. Recipient of the Young Concert Artists International Award, he has toured with American Short Works Musicians from Marlboro and performed as a member of the Society of Lincoln Center. Arches, his début CD on Image Recordings combines old and new solo works. for Violin and Piano Tim Fain performs on a violin made by Francesco Gobetti, Venice 1717, the “Moller” on extended loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society of Chicago. Tim Fain would like to extend his profound gratitude and thanks to Puts • Glass • Kernis Vic Wylie, to all of the on this disc, and to his family, whose love, compassion and support makes all of this possible. Zhurbin • Danielpour Photo courtesy of Moab Music Festival

Pei-Yao Wang Bolcom • Higdon Pei-Yao Wang made her official orchestral début with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra at the age of eight and has since performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. In chamber music she has collaborated Zimmerli • Wylie with members of the Guarneri, Orion, Chicago, Mendelssohn and Miro quartets, and has performed with other distinguished artists such as Claude Frank, Hilary Hahn, David Shifrin, and Mitsuko Uchida. She is also regularly invited to perform at festivals including Marlboro, Caramoor, Norfolk, La Jolla, Ravinia, and Bridgehampton in New York. She is currently a member of Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center, a programme to promote emerging young artists. Born in Taipei, Pei-Yao Wang was the youngest pianist ever to receive the overall First Prize in the Taiwan National Piano Competition, at the age of eight. Four years later, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Seymour Lipkin and Institute Director Gary Graffman. She then studied with Claude Frank at Yale University, where she received the Master of Music degree. She currently resides in New Tim Fain, Violin York City, where for several years she was the only student of . Pei-Yao Wang, Piano 8.559662 4 559662 bk Fain US 21/6/11 09:23 Page 2

River of Light “planes” of music, increases to a massive fortissimo us practice the art of being alive.” American Short Works for Violin and Piano climax and immediately calms. Jennifer Higdon says, of her work, says that his Air is “a love letter to “Legacy represents life’s wholeness, the good and the The American violinist Tim Fain has an affinity for gift for lyricism in common with so many of the most the violin. Songlike and lyrical, it opens up a full range bad, and all of the learning and experiencing that goes developing interesting, musically diverse projects. poetic composers of the past. Having worked closely of the instrument’s expressive and poignant with living. One’s life is a song, continuous, complex, Aside from hearing him in recital or as soloist in venues with the composers on this disc – many are good friends possibilities, composed with two main themes and open ever-eventful. We share and we love and we lose, but throughout the world, you can also hear him as the – I see in them the vital present and the future of in harmony. The first theme poses melodic questions we gain in the process. Everyone leaves a legacy.” sound of Richard Gere’s violin in the feature film Bee American music.” and their responses, while the second is still, rising ever- “It is important to keep our ears open to the music Season and on the soundtrack and on screen in the William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag is a upward into the highest range of the violin. Following a of our time,” Fain insists. “If there had not been Academy Award winning film Black Swan. You can see reconfiguring of this composer’s most famous melody, middle section of dramatic intensity, it cycles back to musicians like Joseph Joachim for example, him on tour with Philip Glass and , and, like most of his music, cares little for settling on a the themes in reverse, developing each along the way, championing the music of , would we collaborating on stage with choreographer Benjamin given style. Though its title pays homage to turn-of-the- and ending quietly after a final plaintive ascent.” know of Brahms’s music today to the extent we do? Millepeid and the Ballet, or performing last-century Ragtime, a bawdy dance music favored by “I composed River of Light with a metaphor in This recording is a vote of confidence – at once a tender with a wide variety of jazz, pop, and chamber artists. incessant syncopation, in this case, as the work is in mind,” says composer Richard Danielpour, “that of look back to the music I fell in love with as a kid, and a This disc, a selection of short pieces built around a keen, memory of his departed father, the character of it is crossing the river – preparing to meet one’s maker. hopeful – no, an eager – look forward to the next ongoing investment in the music of his time – all but somewhat more nostalgic. Writing this work may have been a small step for me generations of composers and musicians.” one of the composers featured here are still living – Lev Zhurbin began composing Sicilienne on the toward trusting and preparing; although I hope to be offers an incisive glimpse into his vivid curiosity. Long Island Railroad, where the composer says he here for many years to come, I know I must begin to Daniel Felsenfeld “I grew up performing the classics,” says Fain, “aimed to create a lilting, peaceful, and romantic dance practice, in simple ways, the art of dying – even as all of Daniel Felsenfeld is a composer who lives in Brooklyn. “including short pieces – virtuosic and lyrical – by in imperceptibly changing meters.” The very title of the Sarasate, Wieniawski, Dvor˘ák, Saint-Saëns, and so work roots it in the past, it being a slow, sorrowful many others. In recording a disc of short works Italian aria in a triple meter. by American composers living in the twentieth and The Light Guitar, written for Fain by Patrick twenty-first centuries, I aim to bring the tradition of the Zimmerli, takes its title from a small section of a poem ‘short piece’ into the present.” in Joyce’s monumental Ulysses, and is cast in three Perhaps taking its inspiration from the work of movements. “The first,” according to the composer, “is many of the composers, this recording reflects the in traditional simple song form”. The second movement adventuresome spirit of Fain and the composers of our is “slow and spare yet lyrical”, while the third is folksy time. Here is a violinist luxuriating in the rich array of and up-tempo, requiring the violinist to play at lightning his solo repertoire, from raw minimalism to soaring speed. lyricism and hot jazz, with many stops in between. Most Kevin Puts’ soaring and lyrical Aria is inspired by of the compositions recorded here, as is the fortunate the second section of the composer’s Arches for solo case with so many new works, grew out of personal violin, to which he later added a piano to create an relationships. For example, some years back, after Fain encore. It is favored by a chorale-like texture, with the performed the concert version of Glass’s Einstein on the piano playing simple, bell-like chords over a vocally- Beach at Carnegie Hall, the composer said he “played inflected violin line. As Puts says, “It is a vocal piece for the hell out of the piece – I’ve never heard the piece like violin and piano.” that, and there’s no going back now!” That work is on The only composer not with us is Ruth Shaw Wylie, this disc. though, according to Fain, her Wistful Piece “really As Fain says: “While the pieces I’ve chosen are shares an aesthetic with the other tracks on the disc.” It each unique and varied in style and character, the is a single-movement work that starts quietly (ergo the composers represented here share a melodic vision and title) but, through an accumulation of what Wylie called

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