David Shifrin - Clarinet
Erin Keefe - Violin
Andrey Tchekmasov - Cello
Gloria Chien - Piano
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano, L.98
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
- Allegro serioso non troppo
- Adagio, Andante
- Maestoso e largamente ma non troppo lento
- Presto
INTERMISSION
BÉLA BARTÓK
Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano, Sz. 111
- Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance)
- Piheno (Relaxation)
- Sebes (Fast Dance)
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Clarinet Trio, Op. 114
- Allegro
- Adagio
- Andante grazioso - Trio
- Allegro
DAVID SHIFRIN
Clarinet
 One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award's inception in 1974, Mr. Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.
Mr. Shifrin has appeared with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit and Denver symphonies among many others in the US, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Shifrin has also received critical acclaim as a recitalist, appearing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City as well as at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. A sought after a chamber musician, he collaborates frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson String Quartets, Wynton Marsalis and pianists Emanuel Ax and André Watts.
An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He has toured extensively throughout the US with CMSLC and appeared in several national television broadcasts on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center. He has also been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981.
David Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale's annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008. He has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China's Central Conservatory in Beijing.
Mr. Shifrin's recordings on Delos, DGG, Angel/EMI, Arabesque, BMG, SONY, and CRI have consistently garnered praise and awards. He has received three Grammy nominations - for a collaborative recording with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of the collected chamber music of Claude Debussy (Delos), the Copland Clarinet Concerto (Angel/EMI) and Ravel's Introduction and Allegro with Nancy Allen, Ransom Wilson, and the Tokyo String Quartet (Angel/EMI). His recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performed in its original version on a specially built basset clarinet, was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review. His latest recording, Shifrin Plays Schifrin (Aleph Records), is a collection of clarinet works by composer/conductor Lalo Schifrin. Both the recording of the Copland Clarinet Concerto and a 2008 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott have been released on iTunes via Angel/EMI and Deutsche Grammophon.
Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng and Ellen Zwilich.
In addition to the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Music Academy of the West. At the outset of his career, he won the top prize at both the Munich and the Geneva International Competitions. Mr. Shifrin resides in Connecticut with his wife and is the father of four children - Henry, Olivia, Sam and William.
ERIN KEEFE
Violin
 American violinist Erin Keefe has been hailed as “an impressive violin soloist” by The New York Times and has established a reputation as a compelling artist who combines exhilarating temperament and fierce integrity. Winner of a 2006 Avery Fisher Career Grant, she recently took grand prizes in the Valsesia Musica, Torun, Schadt and Corpus Christi competitions and was the silver medalist in the Nielsen, Sendai and Gyeongnam competitions.
Ms. Keefe has appeared as a soloist in recent seasons with orchestras such as the New York City Ballet Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra and the Gottingen Symphony and has given recitals throughout the United States, Austria, Germany, Korea, Japan, Poland and Denmark.
Among the leading chamber musicians of her generation, Ms. Keefe joins the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as an Artist during the 2010-2011 season after previously being a member of The Chamber Music Society Two program from 2006-2009. She regularly collaborates with many leading artists of today including the Emerson String Quartet, Edgar Meyer, Gary Hoffman, David Finckel, Wu Han, Gary Graffman, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler and Leon Fleisher. Ms. Keefe has performed with the Boston and Brooklyn Chamber Music Societies and has made festival appearances at Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Music from Angel Fire, Ravinia and the Seattle, OK Mozart, Mimir and Bridgehampton chamber music festivals. She has recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos and CMS Studio Recordings labels, and her performances have been featured on “Live from Lincoln Center” and broadcast on radio stations nationwide.
Ms. Keefe graduated from The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School where she studied with Arnold Steinhardt, Ida Kavafian, Philip Setzer and Ronald Copes. She has also studied with Philipp Naegele, Brian Lewis and Teri Einfeldt. She plays a Nicolo Gagliano violin from 1732.
ANDREY TCHEKMAZOV
Cello
 Hailed by critics as an “extraordinary musician” (Washington Post), cellist Andrey Tchekmazov is known for his versatility as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.
Mr. Tchekmazov was the Grand Prize winner of the Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition and the Premio Trio di Trieste and has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, Russia and Asia, appearing at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Osaka Symphony Hall in Japan, New York's Alice Tully Hall, Brazil's Sala Cecilia Mereles, Sala Sao Paulo and Teatro Alfa with orchestras such as the São Paolo Symphony, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Brazil National Symphony, the Kiev Philharmonic and the Teatro Alfa Symphony. He has also been a top prizewinner at the Koussevitzky Cello Competition in New York, the Schadt Competition, Artists International, Premio della Critica in Trieste and the Russian National Competition in Moscow.
Ever since his critically acclaimed debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall, Mr. Tchekmazov has enjoyed an active career as recitalist and chamber musician, performing at such renowned venues as Zankel Hall, the Caramoor Music Center, Barge Music, the Rhode Island Chamber Music Series, Bar Harbor Festival, Merkin Concert Hall in New York City and Hampden Sydney, where he was invited to perform by the members of The Emerson String Quartet.
As a regular performer with the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C, Mr. Tchekmazov "impressed his audiences with a big, warm tone and Russian brand of virtuosity” (The Strad) by introducing them to rarely-performed jewels of classical music alongside the works of great masters. He has premiered works by contemporary composers such as George Warren, Ira Cremer and Ralf Ytrehus and has recently recorded the Cello Sonata by David Winkler and Byzantine Chants, The Sacred Concerto for Solo Cello, by Margarita Zelenaia, both which were written and dedicated to him. He has also participated in ambitious, unique projects such as performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s entire chamber music repertoire for cello at the Phillips Collection.
An active educator, Andrey Tchekmazov has been a faculty member at the Rio de Janeiro Cello Encounter, the Lakewood Festival, Russish Abend in Germany and the Brasilia International Music Festival. He has also performed at Westminster College and Brown, Bowdoin, Seton Hall and Princeton Universities. As an orchestral musician, Mr. Tchekmazov was appointed principal cellist of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the São Paolo Symphony. His performances have been featured on WQXR, WGBH, NPR and other TV and radio stations across Eastern and Western Europe and South America.
Born in Moscow into a family of professional pianists, Mr. Tchekmazov studied piano and later cello at the Gnessin Academy. He continued his education at the Moscow State Conservatory with Nataliya Shakhovskaya and later at the Juilliard School as a Leonard Rose full scholarship student of Harvey Shapiro. At Juilliard he worked closely with members of the Juilliard and Guarneri String Quartets. Mr. Tchekmazov has made several recordings including a recent release on NAXOS with the Russian National Phiharmonic as well as a recording for the Delos label.
GLORIA CHIEN
Piano
 Pianist Gloria Chien has been picked by the Boston Globe as one of the Superior Pianists of the year, "… who appears to excel in everything." Richard Dyer praised her for "a wondrously rich palette of colors, which she mixes with dashing bravado and with an uncanny precision of calibration…Chien's performance had it all, and it was fabulous."
Ms. Chien made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist under the batons of Sergiu Comissiona, Keith Lockhart, Thomas Dausgaard, Irwin Hoffman, Benjamin Zander, Robert Bernhardt and Felix Chen. She received a Harvard Musical Association Award and was a prize winner at the World Piano Competition and the San Antonio International Piano Competition, where she also received the prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work. Ms. Chien has presented solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard Musical Association, Sanibel Music Festival, Caramoor Music Festival, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. Ms. Chien has participated in such festivals as Music Academy of the West, Verbier Music Festival and Music@Menlo, where she has been a chamber music coach since 2007.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Chien has been the resident pianist with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston since 2000, a group known for its versatility and commitment to new music. The Boston Herald praised her for "[playing] phenomenally." Her recent CD with violinist Joanna Kurkowicz, featuring music of Grazyna Bacewicz, was released on Chandos Records. The International Record Review wrote, "[the violinist] could ask for no more sensitive or supportive an accompanist than Gloria Chien." Harmonie Magazine wrote, "…but it would be unfair not to mention the pianist, who is accompanying the soloist in an absolutely responsive, impressive and confident way. She is more than an accompanist - rather, she is an equivalent partner to the soloist." The Strad praises her for "super performances…accompanied with great character." She also received fantastic reviews in Gramophone,American Record Guide, and Muzyka 21.
Recent engagements include collaborations with the Daedalus, Jupiter and Formosa String Quartets, Wu Han, Paul Neubauer, Andres Diaz, David Shifrin, Ani and Ida Kafavian, Catherine Cho, Soovin Kim, Carolin Widmann, Edward Aaron and Anthony McGill. She has presented numerous duo recitals with pianist Ning An, and the cycle of Beethoven Violin Sonatas with James Buswell, featured live on Boston’s WGBH Radio.
Gloria began playing the piano at the age of five in her native Taiwan. She has a doctor of musical arts, a master’s and an undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Her teachers have included Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. In the fall of 2004, Ms. Chien was named Assistant Professor of Music at the Lee University in Cleveland, TN. During the 2009-2010 season, Gloria is launching String Theory at the Hunter, a new chamber music series at the Hunter Museum of American Art in downtown Chattanooga.
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