559618 bk Gerber US 6/4/09 09:47 Page 8 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) 8.559618 2 7 8.559618 559618 bk Gerber US 6/4/09 09:47 Page 6 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.