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Sara Davis Buechner AMERICAN CLASSICS The pianist Sara Davis Buechner is a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. With an active repertoire of over a hundred piano concertos ranging from Albéniz to Zimbalist, she has appeared as soloist with North America’s most prominent orchestras and tours widely throughout the Far East on a yearly Steven R. basis. She has collaborated in many celebrated recordings on the Connoisseur Society and Koch International labels, as well as a library of Yamaha Disklavier files, and has Photo: Peter Schaaf performed and commissioned many new works by composers such as Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Pierre Charvet, Dick Hyman, Henry Martin, Paul Moravec, Yukiko GERBER Nishimura and Charles Wuorinen. She actively appears in collaborations with film and dance at venues such as Lincoln Center and with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Sara Davis Buechner is Associate Professor of Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and formerly served on the piano faculty of New York University. She has given many master-classes internationally, and her popularity in Japan has led to her Piano Trio becoming an Honorary Member of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team of Osaka. Duo • Elegy Notturno

Kurt Nikkanen, Violin and Viola Cho-Liang Lin, Violin Cyrus Beroukhim, Violin Brinton Smith, Cello Sara Davis Buechner, Piano 8.559618 8 559618 bk Gerber US 6/4/09 09:47 Page 2

Steven R. Cyrus Beroukhim GERBER Violinist Cyrus Beroukhim has received international recognition as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, and has appeared at major venues worldwide. Born in Milwaukee, (b. 1948) Wisconsin, from Iranian descent, he began his violin studies at the age of two, with early studies under Mimi Zweig, culminating in a successful début with the Milwaukee Gershwiniana for three violins (1999) 5:46 0 Notturno for violin, cello Symphony Orchestra at the age of fifteen. He went on to study at the Oberlin Conservatory 1 I. Song Without Words 1:25 and piano (1996) 5:25 under Roland and Almita Vamos, and received his Master of Music degree at the Juilliard (based on Gershwin’s Nice Work If You School, where he studied with Cho-Liang Lin. In May 2007 he received his Doctorate of Music from the Juilliard School as a C.V. Starr Foundation Fellow. Based in New York Can Get It from A Damsel in Distress) ! Elegy on the Name ‘Dmitri City, Cyrus Beroukhim is a member of Fountain Ensemble, Manhattan Sinfonietta, 2 II. Canons 1:52 Shostakovich’ for solo viola (1991) 4:41 (based on Gershwin’s Love Is Here To Stay America’s Dream Chamber Artists, and the Zukofsky Quartet, and serves as concertmaster of the New York Symphonic Ensemble. His interest in contemporary music is demonstrated in premières of works by Jonathan Dawe, from The Goldwyn Follies) Noel Zahler, and Joshua Fineberg, among others. He has collaborated in a number of recordings and broadcasts. 3 III. Blues-Etude 2:30 Three Songs Without Words (based on Gershwin’s Preludes Nos. 3 and 1 for solo violin (1986) 4:12 from 3 Preludes for Piano) @ No. 1. Her Dream 1:19 # No. 2. After Long Silence 1:19 Brinton Averil Smith Three Folksong Transformations $ No. 3. His Confidence 1:34 The cellist Brinton Averil Smith has performed throughout the United States and around for violin, cello and piano (2001) 3:33 the world as a soloist, and as a chamber and orchestral musician. His recording of Miklós % Fantasy for solo violin (1967) 5:36 4 No. 1. Song Without Words 1:19 Rozsa’s Cello Concerto with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra received widespread (based on Careless Love) international critical acclaim, and his recent recording of chamber music of Fauré with Gil 5 No. 2. Canons and Riffs 1:03 ^ Duo for violin and cello (1969) 10:09 Shaham was chosen by numerous critics as one of the year’s best albums. Brinton Averil (based on The Peat-Bog Soldiers) Smith is the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony and was previously a member of 6 No. 3. Variations 1:11 Piano Trio (1968) 17:27 the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the San Diego and Fort Worth (based on What Shall We Do With the symphonies. He is also currently a faculty member of the Shepherd School of Music at & I. Allegro con spirito – Sostenuto – Rice University. His performances have been broadcast throughout the world including, in Drunken Sailor?) Scherzando – Sostenuto – the United States, on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Performance Today. He was Allegro con spirito – 12:28 admitted part-time to Arizona State University at the age of ten, studying mathematics, Three Pieces for two violins (1997) 7:52 * II. Adagio 4:58 music and German, and completed a B.A. in mathematics at the age of seventeen. He 7 No. 1. Lento 3:53 subsequently received his masters and doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School, studying 8 No. 2. Maestoso 1:35 with Zara Nelsova, and writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. 9 No. 3. Poco lento, Calmo 2:24

Recorded at KAS Music and Sound, Astoria, New York, on 7th October, 2002 (tracks 1-3, 7-9), 8th October, 2002 (tracks 11-15), 9th October, 2002 (tracks 4-6, 10), and 10th October, 2002 (tracks 16-18) Publishers: American Composers Editions, Inc. (BMI) (tracks 1-14); Jerona Music Corporation (Mobart Music Publications - BMI) (tracks 15, 17-18); Association for the Publication of New Music (BMI) (track 16)

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Kurt Nikkanen Steven R. Gerber (b. 1948) Chamber Music American violinist Kurt Nikkanen was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and began his violin studies at the age of three, later studying with Roman Totenberg and The nine works on this recording, presented in roughly beautifully, with brief, rather cryptic interpolations by Jens Ellerman. At twelve he gave his Carnegie Hall début, performing with the reverse chronological order, span the years 1967-2001, the piano; and Variations uses the melodic outline of New York Symphony; two years later he was invited by Zubin Mehta to perform most of my compositional career so far. What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor? I am the Paganini Concerto No.1 with the New York Philharmonic for a Young Gershwiniana (1999), for three violins (or two grateful to the recording engineer, Susan Napodano

Photo: Jari Laurikko People’s Concert. He studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. In a violins and viola), is the first of several pieces of mine DelGiorno, for suggesting during the recording session distinguished international career he regularly receives invitations from the based on works by other composers. In these pieces I that in the second movement it suited the mood better leading orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has toured Japan and the take motfis or other fragments from these compositions for the cello to begin the canons rather than the violin, as Far East, collaborating with many leading conductors. An enthusiastic advocate of and then re-work them into something completely new. I had originally intended. contemporary music, he has given numerous performances of the John Adams Violin Concerto, and other My intention is not to comment on the original works Three Pieces for two violins (1997) was begun in contemporary projects include Aaron Jay Kernis’s Concerto for violin and guitar, which he performed at the 1998 but simply to use them as a springboard. I have used the part as a study for a concerto for two violins, strings, Aspen Festival, HK Gruber’s violin concerto Nebelsteinmusik and the world première of John Zorn’s Contes de same technique in Spirituals (for string orchestra, with a and harp entitled Serenade Concertante (1998), written Fées. Steven R. Gerber’s Violin Concerto was written especially for him. second version for clarinet and string quartet and a third for the Russian violinst Tatjana Grindenko and recorded version for string quartet alone), Three Folksong on Arabesque. The first movement alternates material Transformations (also on this recording), and Five suggestive of so-called “mystic minimalism” (I Greek Folksongs (After Ravel) for violin and piano. The borrowed this music from my Sonatina for oboe and Cho-Liang Lin first movement of Gershwiniana, Song Without Words, guitar) with a more rhythmic, rather Coplandesque idea; is based on the opening motif of Gershwin’s song Nice the second movement is much more dissonant and Cho-Liang Lin is a violinist whose career has spanned the globe for 27 years. He was born Work If You Can Get It, whose words are “Holding harsh; the diatonic finale is lyrical and contemplative. in Taiwan in 1960 and began playing the violin at the age of five. He went on to study in hands at midnight”; it was my realization of the Notturno (1996) was written for the London-based Sydney, and in New York City with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. Since his similarity between the opening phrases of the movement Bekova Trio, for whom I also wrote a Triple Overture début at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival at the age of nineteen, he has appeared I had already begun and the Gershwin song that led me for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra, recorded on with virtually every major orchestra in the world. He has over twenty recordings to his to write a group of pieces based on Gershwin. The Chandos. It is in A-B-A form, with the short middle Photo: Paul Body credit, ranging from the concertos of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Prokofiev, to second movement, Canons, takes the opening motif section briefly reappearing at the end. While I borrowed Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun, as well as the chamber music of Schubert, Brahms, from Love Is Here To Stay (the words here are “It’s very the title from Schubert, whose Notturno is one of the Tchaikovsky and Ravel. His partners include Yefim Bronfman, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton clear”) and, like the first movement, it completely few short works for the medium, the chord-spacing has Marsalis, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and Isaac Stern in changes Gershwin’s harmony. While both these more in common with Brahms. The basic material is recordings that have been critically acclaimed, winning several Grammy nominations and movements are lyrical and use only white notes, the very simple, but the mood is dark. The Gramophone’s Record of the Year award. He has been a member of the Juilliard finale, Blues-Etude, is extremely virtuosic, taking Elegy on the Name ‘Dmitri Shostakovich’ (1991) School faculty since 1991. He is also the music director of La Jolla SummerFest in fragments from two of Gershwin’s Preludes for piano was written for the Russian violist Elena Ozol, whom I California. His recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is available on Naxos 8.557920. and turning them into a series of twelve-bar blues in E got to know well when, as composer and pianist, I flat minor. toured Russia in the early nineties with her group, the Three Folksong Transformations (2001) for violin, Russian Quartet. She asked me to write a work for solo cello, and piano uses the same method as Gershwiniana, viola, and since Shostakovich was her favorite applying it to three of my favorite folksongs: Song composer I decided one day to play around with the Without Words transforms some of the motifs of letters of Shostakovich’s name and came up with two Careless Love from F major into a rather dour F sharp motifs that I liked, based respectively on the letters minor, with the cello imitating the violin; Canons and SHSTA and DMT (S is E flat and H is B natural in Riffs combines canonic passages based on motifs from German, while T and M represent Ti and Mi, or B The Peat-Bog Soldiers, a song Paul Robeson sang so natural and E natural). At the end I used Shostakovich’s

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own DSCH motif, with the C transposed down an B-C-B-A), but the final two sections are highly varied. Steven R. Gerber octave, and I was very pleased when one violist who Duo for violin and cello (1969) reflects a brief played the piece told me that at that moment it sounded period when I was influenced by the first two string Steven R. Gerber was born in 1948 in Washington, D.C. and now lives in New to her as if Shostakovich himself were coming out of the quartets of Elliott Carter, though my piece is less York City. He received degrees from Haverford College and from Princeton grave. The Elegy, which I arranged in 1992 for cellist complex rhythmically and contrapuntally. Like Carter in University, where he received a four-year fellowship. His composition teachers Mikhail Utkin, has become my most frequently played his second quartet, I thought of the instruments as included Robert Parris, J. K. Randall, Earl Kim, and Milton Babbitt. Two CDs of work. It is also the first of many pieces in which I have characters in a sort of dialogue, sometimes arguing with Gerber’s orchestral works were released on major labels in 2000. Chandos issued used letters as motifs – for example, I used the letters each other, sometimes ignoring each other, sometimes his Symphony No. 1, Dirge and Awakening, Viola Concerto, and Triple Overture, BASHMET in the Viola Concerto I wrote for Yuri going off on their own (each has a cadenza), and finally played by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling, with Bashmet, the letters BRAHMS in the Serenade reconciling in the slow coda. Lars Anders Tomter, viola, and the Bekova Sisters Trio. Koch International Concertante, and the letters AMERICA and USA in my Finally, Trio for violin, cello, and piano (1968) was Classics, under a grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, released his Fanfare for the Voice of A-M-E-R-I-C-A, a work commissioned by the Kindler Foundation when I was Violin Concerto, Cello Concerto, and Serenade for String Orchestra, played by commissioned shortly after 9/11 by Voice of America nineteen and given its première by the Trio of the the National Chamber Orchestra under Piotr Gajewski, with soloists Kurt for its sixtieth anniversary. University of Maryland. My first large-scale work, it Nikkanen and Carter Brey. After the American première of his Violin Concerto at Three Songs Without Words (1986) for solo violin was stylistically influenced by my teacher and mentor, the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1995 were written at the request of my friends Michael Robert Parris, who had earlier been my piano teacher, by Nikkanen and the National Chamber Orchestra under Gajewski, the Dellaira and Brenda Wineapple for their wedding. and, through him, Bartók. It is very challenging Washington Post described it as major addition to the contemporary violin These pieces are arrangements of three songs from technically for the performers, and in a couple of the repertoire, and when Carter Brey gave the première of his Cello Concerto with Words for Music Perhaps, eleven settings of W.B. Yeats sections I pulled out all the stops in the demands on both the same orchestra and conductor in 1996, the same paper gave it the highest for soprano and two violins completed in 1985. In these the individual players and the ensemble. It is in two praise. Recent works of Gerber’s include a Viola Concerto written for Yuri arrangements changes of register and alternations large movements: the first is in many sub-sections, Bashmet and given its première by Bashmet at his summer festival in Tours, between single notes and double stops usually indicate Allegro con spirito – Sostenuto – Scherzando – France, String Quartets Nos. 4 and 5, written respectively for the Fine Arts and Amernet String Quartets, Spirituals which passages were vocal lines and which were string Sostenuto and a highly shortened and varied return of for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Concertante Chamber Players for performances in 2000 at the parts in the original versions. the Allegro con spirito; after that there is a slow Library of Congress (Washington, DC), New York City, and Harrisburg, a Clarinet Concerto for Jon Manasse, first The final three works were written much earlier and transition and then the finale, marked Adagio. I have performed by him with the National Philharmonic Orchestra under Piotr Gajewski, and Fanfare for the Voice of A-M- are much more chromatic and less tonal than the other always thought of the Trio as a “young man’s piece” in E-R-I-C-A, commissioned to celebrate VOA’s sixtieth anniversary, and given its première at the VOA auditorium in pieces heard here. its ambitiousness and, relative to many of my later a 9/11 memorial concert in 2003. The Fanfare has since then been performed by the Wheeling Symphony, the Omaha Fantasy for solo violin (1967) was finished shortly works, its lack of emotional and technical restraint. The Symphony, the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) Orchestra, and by the National Philharmonic Orchestra at the after my nineteenth birthday. It is an extremely virtuosic Trio has at least one characteristic in common with the new Music Center at Strathmore as part of the 2005 ASOL convention. Gerber’s music is well-known also in Russia work in several sections: a maestoso opening, a calmer, Duo, an obsession with combining long-held notes or and Ukraine, where he has had numerous tours with literally dozens of performances of his orchestral works as well slower section climaxing in a scherzando, a return to the chords with faster-moving, more aggressive material. as many concerts of his solo and chamber works. Several of his major works were given their world premières there, maestoso, and finally a calm, lyrical coda based on the including Dirge and Awakening by the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev at the Great Hall of the second section. Overall the shape is that of an arch (A- Steven R. Gerber Moscow Conservatory, Violin Concerto by the Novosibirsk Philharmonic under Arnold Katz, with soloist Kurt Nikkanen, and Serenade Concertante by the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin under Misha Rachlevsky at the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. Gerber has written several works for famed Russian violinist Tatyana Grindenko. In 2007 Arabesque released a CD of three of Gerber’s orchestral works, Spirituals for string orchestra, Clarinet Concerto, and Serenade Concertante, featuring the St Petersburg State Academic Symphony, conducted by Vladimir Lande, and clarinetist Jon Manasse. Gerber’s most recent work, Music in Dark Times for orchestra, commissioned by Vladimir Ashkenazy, received its world première performance in March 2009, with Ashkenazy conducting the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

For more information please visit www.stevengerber.com

8.559618 45 8.559618 559618 bk Gerber US 6/4/09 09:47 Page 4

own DSCH motif, with the C transposed down an B-C-B-A), but the final two sections are highly varied. Steven R. Gerber octave, and I was very pleased when one violist who Duo for violin and cello (1969) reflects a brief played the piece told me that at that moment it sounded period when I was influenced by the first two string Steven R. Gerber was born in 1948 in Washington, D.C. and now lives in New to her as if Shostakovich himself were coming out of the quartets of Elliott Carter, though my piece is less York City. He received degrees from Haverford College and from Princeton grave. The Elegy, which I arranged in 1992 for cellist complex rhythmically and contrapuntally. Like Carter in University, where he received a four-year fellowship. His composition teachers Mikhail Utkin, has become my most frequently played his second quartet, I thought of the instruments as included Robert Parris, J. K. Randall, Earl Kim, and Milton Babbitt. Two CDs of work. It is also the first of many pieces in which I have characters in a sort of dialogue, sometimes arguing with Gerber’s orchestral works were released on major labels in 2000. Chandos issued used letters as motifs – for example, I used the letters each other, sometimes ignoring each other, sometimes his Symphony No. 1, Dirge and Awakening, Viola Concerto, and Triple Overture, BASHMET in the Viola Concerto I wrote for Yuri going off on their own (each has a cadenza), and finally played by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling, with Bashmet, the letters BRAHMS in the Serenade reconciling in the slow coda. Lars Anders Tomter, viola, and the Bekova Sisters Trio. Koch International Concertante, and the letters AMERICA and USA in my Finally, Trio for violin, cello, and piano (1968) was Classics, under a grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, released his Fanfare for the Voice of A-M-E-R-I-C-A, a work commissioned by the Kindler Foundation when I was Violin Concerto, Cello Concerto, and Serenade for String Orchestra, played by commissioned shortly after 9/11 by Voice of America nineteen and given its première by the Trio of the the National Chamber Orchestra under Piotr Gajewski, with soloists Kurt for its sixtieth anniversary. University of Maryland. My first large-scale work, it Nikkanen and Carter Brey. After the American première of his Violin Concerto at Three Songs Without Words (1986) for solo violin was stylistically influenced by my teacher and mentor, the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1995 were written at the request of my friends Michael Robert Parris, who had earlier been my piano teacher, by Nikkanen and the National Chamber Orchestra under Gajewski, the Dellaira and Brenda Wineapple for their wedding. and, through him, Bartók. It is very challenging Washington Post described it as major addition to the contemporary violin These pieces are arrangements of three songs from technically for the performers, and in a couple of the repertoire, and when Carter Brey gave the première of his Cello Concerto with Words for Music Perhaps, eleven settings of W.B. Yeats sections I pulled out all the stops in the demands on both the same orchestra and conductor in 1996, the same paper gave it the highest for soprano and two violins completed in 1985. In these the individual players and the ensemble. It is in two praise. Recent works of Gerber’s include a Viola Concerto written for Yuri arrangements changes of register and alternations large movements: the first is in many sub-sections, Bashmet and given its première by Bashmet at his summer festival in Tours, between single notes and double stops usually indicate Allegro con spirito – Sostenuto – Scherzando – France, String Quartets Nos. 4 and 5, written respectively for the Fine Arts and Amernet String Quartets, Spirituals which passages were vocal lines and which were string Sostenuto and a highly shortened and varied return of for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Concertante Chamber Players for performances in 2000 at the parts in the original versions. the Allegro con spirito; after that there is a slow Library of Congress (Washington, DC), New York City, and Harrisburg, a Clarinet Concerto for Jon Manasse, first The final three works were written much earlier and transition and then the finale, marked Adagio. I have performed by him with the National Philharmonic Orchestra under Piotr Gajewski, and Fanfare for the Voice of A-M- are much more chromatic and less tonal than the other always thought of the Trio as a “young man’s piece” in E-R-I-C-A, commissioned to celebrate VOA’s sixtieth anniversary, and given its première at the VOA auditorium in pieces heard here. its ambitiousness and, relative to many of my later a 9/11 memorial concert in 2003. The Fanfare has since then been performed by the Wheeling Symphony, the Omaha Fantasy for solo violin (1967) was finished shortly works, its lack of emotional and technical restraint. The Symphony, the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) Orchestra, and by the National Philharmonic Orchestra at the after my nineteenth birthday. It is an extremely virtuosic Trio has at least one characteristic in common with the new Music Center at Strathmore as part of the 2005 ASOL convention. Gerber’s music is well-known also in Russia work in several sections: a maestoso opening, a calmer, Duo, an obsession with combining long-held notes or and Ukraine, where he has had numerous tours with literally dozens of performances of his orchestral works as well slower section climaxing in a scherzando, a return to the chords with faster-moving, more aggressive material. as many concerts of his solo and chamber works. Several of his major works were given their world premières there, maestoso, and finally a calm, lyrical coda based on the including Dirge and Awakening by the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev at the Great Hall of the second section. Overall the shape is that of an arch (A- Steven R. Gerber Moscow Conservatory, Violin Concerto by the Novosibirsk Philharmonic under Arnold Katz, with soloist Kurt Nikkanen, and Serenade Concertante by the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin under Misha Rachlevsky at the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. Gerber has written several works for famed Russian violinist Tatyana Grindenko. In 2007 Arabesque released a CD of three of Gerber’s orchestral works, Spirituals for string orchestra, Clarinet Concerto, and Serenade Concertante, featuring the St Petersburg State Academic Symphony, conducted by Vladimir Lande, and clarinetist Jon Manasse. Gerber’s most recent work, Music in Dark Times for orchestra, commissioned by Vladimir Ashkenazy, received its world première performance in March 2009, with Ashkenazy conducting the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

For more information please visit www.stevengerber.com

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Kurt Nikkanen Steven R. Gerber (b. 1948) Chamber Music American violinist Kurt Nikkanen was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and began his violin studies at the age of three, later studying with Roman Totenberg and The nine works on this recording, presented in roughly beautifully, with brief, rather cryptic interpolations by Jens Ellerman. At twelve he gave his Carnegie Hall début, performing with the reverse chronological order, span the years 1967-2001, the piano; and Variations uses the melodic outline of New York Symphony; two years later he was invited by Zubin Mehta to perform most of my compositional career so far. What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor? I am the Paganini Concerto No.1 with the New York Philharmonic for a Young Gershwiniana (1999), for three violins (or two grateful to the recording engineer, Susan Napodano

Photo: Jari Laurikko People’s Concert. He studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. In a violins and viola), is the first of several pieces of mine DelGiorno, for suggesting during the recording session distinguished international career he regularly receives invitations from the based on works by other composers. In these pieces I that in the second movement it suited the mood better leading orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has toured Japan and the take motfis or other fragments from these compositions for the cello to begin the canons rather than the violin, as Far East, collaborating with many leading conductors. An enthusiastic advocate of and then re-work them into something completely new. I had originally intended. contemporary music, he has given numerous performances of the John Adams Violin Concerto, and other My intention is not to comment on the original works Three Pieces for two violins (1997) was begun in contemporary projects include Aaron Jay Kernis’s Concerto for violin and guitar, which he performed at the 1998 but simply to use them as a springboard. I have used the part as a study for a concerto for two violins, strings, Aspen Festival, HK Gruber’s violin concerto Nebelsteinmusik and the world première of John Zorn’s Contes de same technique in Spirituals (for string orchestra, with a and harp entitled Serenade Concertante (1998), written Fées. Steven R. Gerber’s Violin Concerto was written especially for him. second version for clarinet and string quartet and a third for the Russian violinst Tatjana Grindenko and recorded version for string quartet alone), Three Folksong on Arabesque. The first movement alternates material Transformations (also on this recording), and Five suggestive of so-called “mystic minimalism” (I Greek Folksongs (After Ravel) for violin and piano. The borrowed this music from my Sonatina for oboe and Cho-Liang Lin first movement of Gershwiniana, Song Without Words, guitar) with a more rhythmic, rather Coplandesque idea; is based on the opening motif of Gershwin’s song Nice the second movement is much more dissonant and Cho-Liang Lin is a violinist whose career has spanned the globe for 27 years. He was born Work If You Can Get It, whose words are “Holding harsh; the diatonic finale is lyrical and contemplative. in Taiwan in 1960 and began playing the violin at the age of five. He went on to study in hands at midnight”; it was my realization of the Notturno (1996) was written for the London-based Sydney, and in New York City with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. Since his similarity between the opening phrases of the movement Bekova Trio, for whom I also wrote a Triple Overture début at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival at the age of nineteen, he has appeared I had already begun and the Gershwin song that led me for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra, recorded on with virtually every major orchestra in the world. He has over twenty recordings to his to write a group of pieces based on Gershwin. The Chandos. It is in A-B-A form, with the short middle Photo: Paul Body credit, ranging from the concertos of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Prokofiev, to second movement, Canons, takes the opening motif section briefly reappearing at the end. While I borrowed Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun, as well as the chamber music of Schubert, Brahms, from Love Is Here To Stay (the words here are “It’s very the title from Schubert, whose Notturno is one of the Tchaikovsky and Ravel. His partners include Yefim Bronfman, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton clear”) and, like the first movement, it completely few short works for the medium, the chord-spacing has Marsalis, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and Isaac Stern in changes Gershwin’s harmony. While both these more in common with Brahms. The basic material is recordings that have been critically acclaimed, winning several Grammy nominations and movements are lyrical and use only white notes, the very simple, but the mood is dark. The Gramophone’s Record of the Year award. He has been a member of the Juilliard finale, Blues-Etude, is extremely virtuosic, taking Elegy on the Name ‘Dmitri Shostakovich’ (1991) School faculty since 1991. He is also the music director of La Jolla SummerFest in fragments from two of Gershwin’s Preludes for piano was written for the Russian violist Elena Ozol, whom I California. His recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is available on Naxos 8.557920. and turning them into a series of twelve-bar blues in E got to know well when, as composer and pianist, I flat minor. toured Russia in the early nineties with her group, the Three Folksong Transformations (2001) for violin, Russian Quartet. She asked me to write a work for solo cello, and piano uses the same method as Gershwiniana, viola, and since Shostakovich was her favorite applying it to three of my favorite folksongs: Song composer I decided one day to play around with the Without Words transforms some of the motifs of letters of Shostakovich’s name and came up with two Careless Love from F major into a rather dour F sharp motifs that I liked, based respectively on the letters minor, with the cello imitating the violin; Canons and SHSTA and DMT (S is E flat and H is B natural in Riffs combines canonic passages based on motifs from German, while T and M represent Ti and Mi, or B The Peat-Bog Soldiers, a song Paul Robeson sang so natural and E natural). At the end I used Shostakovich’s

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Steven R. Cyrus Beroukhim GERBER Violinist Cyrus Beroukhim has received international recognition as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, and has appeared at major venues worldwide. Born in Milwaukee, (b. 1948) Wisconsin, from Iranian descent, he began his violin studies at the age of two, with early studies under Mimi Zweig, culminating in a successful début with the Milwaukee Gershwiniana for three violins (1999) 5:46 0 Notturno for violin, cello Symphony Orchestra at the age of fifteen. He went on to study at the Oberlin Conservatory 1 I. Song Without Words 1:25 and piano (1996) 5:25 under Roland and Almita Vamos, and received his Master of Music degree at the Juilliard (based on Gershwin’s Nice Work If You School, where he studied with Cho-Liang Lin. In May 2007 he received his Doctorate of Music from the Juilliard School as a C.V. Starr Foundation Fellow. Based in New York Can Get It from A Damsel in Distress) ! Elegy on the Name ‘Dmitri City, Cyrus Beroukhim is a member of Fountain Ensemble, Manhattan Sinfonietta, 2 II. Canons 1:52 Shostakovich’ for solo viola (1991) 4:41 (based on Gershwin’s Love Is Here To Stay America’s Dream Chamber Artists, and the Zukofsky Quartet, and serves as concertmaster of the New York Symphonic Ensemble. His interest in contemporary music is demonstrated in premières of works by Jonathan Dawe, from The Goldwyn Follies) Noel Zahler, and Joshua Fineberg, among others. He has collaborated in a number of recordings and broadcasts. 3 III. Blues-Etude 2:30 Three Songs Without Words (based on Gershwin’s Preludes Nos. 3 and 1 for solo violin (1986) 4:12 from 3 Preludes for Piano) @ No. 1. Her Dream 1:19 # No. 2. After Long Silence 1:19 Brinton Averil Smith Three Folksong Transformations $ No. 3. His Confidence 1:34 The cellist Brinton Averil Smith has performed throughout the United States and around for violin, cello and piano (2001) 3:33 the world as a soloist, and as a chamber and orchestral musician. His recording of Miklós % Fantasy for solo violin (1967) 5:36 4 No. 1. Song Without Words 1:19 Rozsa’s Cello Concerto with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra received widespread (based on Careless Love) international critical acclaim, and his recent recording of chamber music of Fauré with Gil 5 No. 2. Canons and Riffs 1:03 ^ Duo for violin and cello (1969) 10:09 Shaham was chosen by numerous critics as one of the year’s best albums. Brinton Averil (based on The Peat-Bog Soldiers) Smith is the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony and was previously a member of 6 No. 3. Variations 1:11 Piano Trio (1968) 17:27 the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the San Diego and Fort Worth (based on What Shall We Do With the symphonies. He is also currently a faculty member of the Shepherd School of Music at & I. Allegro con spirito – Sostenuto – Rice University. His performances have been broadcast throughout the world including, in Drunken Sailor?) Scherzando – Sostenuto – the United States, on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Performance Today. He was Allegro con spirito – 12:28 admitted part-time to Arizona State University at the age of ten, studying mathematics, Three Pieces for two violins (1997) 7:52 * II. Adagio 4:58 music and German, and completed a B.A. in mathematics at the age of seventeen. He 7 No. 1. Lento 3:53 subsequently received his masters and doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School, studying 8 No. 2. Maestoso 1:35 with Zara Nelsova, and writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. 9 No. 3. Poco lento, Calmo 2:24

Recorded at KAS Music and Sound, Astoria, New York, on 7th October, 2002 (tracks 1-3, 7-9), 8th October, 2002 (tracks 11-15), 9th October, 2002 (tracks 4-6, 10), and 10th October, 2002 (tracks 16-18) Publishers: American Composers Editions, Inc. (BMI) (tracks 1-14); Jerona Music Corporation (Mobart Music Publications - BMI) (tracks 15, 17-18); Association for the Publication of New Music (BMI) (track 16)

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Sara Davis Buechner AMERICAN CLASSICS The pianist Sara Davis Buechner is a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. With an active repertoire of over a hundred piano concertos ranging from Albéniz to Zimbalist, she has appeared as soloist with North America’s most prominent orchestras and tours widely throughout the Far East on a yearly Steven R. basis. She has collaborated in many celebrated recordings on the Connoisseur Society and Koch International labels, as well as a library of Yamaha Disklavier files, and has Photo: Peter Schaaf performed and commissioned many new works by composers such as Dorothy Chang, Stephen Chatman, Pierre Charvet, Dick Hyman, Henry Martin, Paul Moravec, Yukiko GERBER Nishimura and Charles Wuorinen. She actively appears in collaborations with film and dance at venues such as Lincoln Center and with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Sara Davis Buechner is Associate Professor of Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and formerly served on the piano faculty of New York University. She has given many master-classes internationally, and her popularity in Japan has led to her Piano Trio becoming an Honorary Member of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team of Osaka. Duo • Elegy Notturno

Kurt Nikkanen, Violin and Viola Cho-Liang Lin, Violin Cyrus Beroukhim, Violin Brinton Smith, Cello Sara Davis Buechner, Piano 8.559618 8 American Classics tray insert 24/10/2003 9:01 am Page 1

CMYK CMYK NAXOS Playing Steven R. Time: GERBER 64:39 (b. 1948) 8.559618 Disc made in Canada. Printed and assembled USA. compact disc prohibited. Unauthorised public performance, broadcasting and copying of this All rights in this sound recording, artwork, texts and translations reserved. 1 1-3 Gershwiniana (1999) 5:46 AMERICAN CLASSICS 4-6 Three Folksong Transformations (2001) 2 3:33 Each of Steven Gerber’s works is ‘an 7-9 Three Pieces (1997) 3 7:52 important addition to music… its 0 Notturno (1996) 4 5:25 sense of evolution from previous ! GERBER: Elegy on the Name generations welcome at a time when ൿ ‘Dmitri Shostakovich’ (1991) 5 4:41 & @ $ 6 change seems to have become a Ꭿ - Three Songs Without Words (1986) 4:12

2009 Naxos Rights International Ltd. % Fantasy for solo violin (1967) 7 5:36 virtue in itself’ (Fanfare). Whether ^ Duo for violin and cello (1969) 8 10:09 meditating on Gershwin’s music or

9 Music Chamber &-* Piano Trio (1968) 17:27 classic folksongs, paying tribute to Kurt Nikkanen, Violin 1-4, 6-9 and Viola 5 Shostakovich or exploring the

Chamber Music 1, 3 Cho-Liang Lin, Violin possibilities offered by a particular 1 Cyrus Beroukhim, Violin musical idea, his solo and chamber Brinton Smith, Cello 2, 4, 8, 9 works can possess the imagination Sara Davis Buechner, Piano 2, 4, 9 and haunt the memory of listeners in A detailed track list and full recording and publishers’ GERBER: details can be found on page 2 of the booklet. a way that is both authentically Recorded at KAS Music and Sound, Astoria, New York, in October 2002 American yet also universal in its Producer: Susan Napodano DelGiorno humane spirit. Engineer: David Merrill • Editors: Paul Cox and Justin Balch Piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services Piano technician: Michael Miccio www.naxos.com 8.559618 Special thanks to James Steeber, Yamaha Artist Services, 8.559618 and the MITZI Foundation Booklet notes: Steven R. Gerber Cover image: Place of the Soul by Stephen Moore (iStockphoto.com) NAXOS