Transformations Elizabeth Chang, Steven Beck, Alberto Parrini

• Leon Kirchner (1919 - 2009):
• 1 Kirchner: Duo No. 2 for Violin and Piano 15:04
• Roger Sessions (1896 - 1985):
• 2 Sessions: Solo Sonata: I. Tempo Moderato 10:47
• 3 Sessions: Solo Sonata: Ii. Molto Vivo 06:30
• 4 Sessions: Solo Sonata: Iii. Adagio e dolcemente 09:14
• 5 Sessions: Solo Sonata: Iv. Alla marcia vivace 04:34
• 6 Sessions: Duo for Violin and Cello 08:21
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951):
• 7 Schoenberg: Phantasy 08:20
• Total Runtime 01:02:50

Info for Transformations

Elizabeth Chang comments that "This selection of composers derives its rationale from my own artistic heritage and the profound artistic and pedagogical influence Leon Kirchner had on me when I was an undergraduate…Kirchner, in turn was a student of two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, Roger Sessions and Arnold Schoenberg." Ms. Chang enjoys a multi-faceted career as performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her performing career has taken her to more than 20 countries. She is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. She is artistic director and co-founder of the Lighthouse Chamber Players, co-founder of the Five College New Music Festival, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium and Musique de Chambre en Val Lamartinien (Burgundy, France). A graduate of Harvard, Ms. Chang was recipient of the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award. She is joined by noted pianist Steven Beck, who shares Ms. Chang's passion for music of our time.

"American violinist Elizabeth Chang’s new album Transformations on Albany Records brings together works by Leon Kirchner (1919-2009), Roger Sessions (1896-1985) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). As can be seen from the press release, this is about teacher-student relationships. Chang was a student of Leon Kirchner at Harvard University. Kirchner, for his part, studied with both Sessions and Schoenberg. The program begins with Kirchner’s Second Duo for Violin and Piano, a modern piece from 2002 alternating between lively and very delicately lyrical moments. Elizabeth Chang and Steven Beck play it intensely with the utmost commitment, the violinist continually delighting with ravishing cantabile. Roger Sessions’ four-movement solo sonata for violin is, according to the composer, « rhapsodic. » The first movement is of fragile lyricism, the second and the Finale are virtuosic and brilliant, while the Adagio in Elisabeth Chang’s interpretation becomes gorgeously tender, like a modern lullaby. Chang and cellist Alberto Parrini perform Robert Sessions’ Duo for Violin and Cello with real flair and commitment. Like Sessions’ Duo, Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment, Op. 47 (1949), is the composer’s last chamber work. The dodecaphonic composition is virtuosic and sometimes genuinely dance-like, while being really technically challenging in the violin part. But Elizabeth Chang masters this brilliantly and elegantly at the same time, her playing standing out pleasantly to my ears from the far more brash approach of a Gidon Kremer. And so the line of excellent interpretations runs through a program of transformations…." (Remy Franck, pizzicato.lu)

Elizabeth Chang, violin
Steven Beck, piano
Alberto Parrini, cello

Elizabeth Chang
enjoys a multi-faceted career as performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her performing career has taken her to more than twenty countries and her chamber music appearances have included collaborations with many of today's leading artists. She is currently Professor of Violin at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the violin and viola faculties of the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. In the summers she serves on the faculties of Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and Brancaleoni International Music Festival in Italy.

Chang is Artistic Director and co-founder of the Lighthouse Chamber Players (Cape Cod) as well as co-founder and co-organizer of the Five College New Music Festival, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium and Musique de Chambre en Val Lamartinien (Burgundy, France). She also co-founded the NYU Intensive Quartet Workshop and The School for Strings Intensive Chamber Music Workshop.

Chang has worked with a number of composers on new works for violin and including violin, most notably and extensively with Salvatore Macchia, Eric Sawyer, and Lewis Spratlan. Prior to her appointment to UMass, Chang toured and recorded extensively with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and performed with a number of new music groups based in New York City. She was formerly an Artist Faculty member of New York University and of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Chang was a violin student of Louise Behrend, Joseph Fuchs, Roman Totenberg, and Max Rostal, and worked extensively with Leon Kirchner and Luise Vosgerchian. She is a graduate of Harvard College and was a recipient of the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award.

Steven Beck
A recent New York concert by pianist Steven Beck was described as “exemplary” and “deeply satisfying” by Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times. Beck is an experienced performer of new music, having worked with Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, George Perle, and Fred Lerdahl, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. He is a member of the Knights, the Talea Ensemble, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. He is also a member of Quattro Mani, a piano duo specializing in contemporary music. As an orchestral musician he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Orpheus, the Mariinsky Orchestra and many others. Recent performances include “Carnival of the Animals” with the New York Philharmonic and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Princeton Symphony. Beck gives an annual Christmas Eve performance of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” at Bargemusic; this has become a New York institution. Beck’s discography includes Peter Lieberson's third piano concerto (for Bridge Records) and a recording of Elliott Carter’s “Double Concerto” on Albany Records. He is a Steinway Artist.

Alberto Parrini
has toured North America, Europe and Asia with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project and performed with Arco Ensemble, Concertante, Continuum, Mark Morris Dance Group, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Mirror Visions, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Proteus Ensemble and Sinfonietta of Riverdale. His festival appearances include Evian, Tanglewood, Taos, Verbier, Ottawa, Montreal, San Miguel de Allende, Spoleto U.S.A., Music@Menlo, Windham, The Weekend of Chamber Music and the Piatigorsky seminar. He is principal cellist of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic and a member of the American Symphony and Orchestra of St. Luke’s He also performs regularly with East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Lenape Chamber Ensemble, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Richardson Chamber Players, New Jersey Symphony and New York Philharmonic. As a founding member of the Zukofsky Quartet he gave performances of the complete string quartets of Milton Babbitt in New York and Chicago. He performed throughout the U.S. with the American Chamber Players from 2004 to 2010, was the cellist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet in 2002-03 and spent one season as assistant principal cellist with the Richmond Symphony. His principal studies were with Timothy Eddy, Joel Krosnick, David Soyer, Colin Carr and Enrico Egano; he is a graduate of the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. Parrini teaches cello at Princeton University and at The College of New Jersey. In the summer, he teaches at Kinhaven Music School, where he is also co-director of the Adult Chamber Music Workshop.

Booklet for Transformations