Abram Chasins

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Abram Chasins (born August 17, 1903 in New York City ; † June 21, 1987 ibid) was an American pianist, composer, music writer and teacher.

After attending the Ethical Culture School , he studied at Columbia University . He studied with Ernest Hutcheson (piano) and Rubin Goldmark (composition) at the Juilliard School of Music and continued his piano training at the Curtis Institute of Music with Józef Hofmann . In 1931 he studied music analysis with Donald Tovey in London.

From 1926 to 1931 Chasins taught at the Curtis Institute, 1940 to 1941 at the Berkshire Music Center , and he also gave private music lessons. From 1927 to 1947 he was active as a concert pianist. The world premiere of his own Piano Concerto No. 1 in F Minor he played in 1928 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ossip Gabrilowitsch at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and later at Carnegie Hall . He played the world premiere of his second piano concerto in 1931 under Leopold Stokowski . His compositions Parade and Flirtation in a Chinese Garden led by Arturo Toscanini with the New York Philharmonic on.

From 1932 to 1939 Chasin directed his own radio series. From 1943 to 1965 he was the musical director of the New York classic channel WQXR . In 1949 he married his student, the pianist Constance Keene , with whom he also performed and recorded works for two pianos.

Chasin composed more than one hundred piano works, the most famous of which are the Three Chinese Pieces ( A Shanghai Tragedy , Flirtation in a Chinese Garden and Rush Hour in Hong Kong ) from 1926.

He also published several portraits of musicians and books on music from 1957.

Works

  • Three Chinese Pieces (1926)
  • Piano Concerto No. 1 in F Minor (1928)
  • Piano Concerto in F Sharp Minor (1931)
  • Artists' Life (after Richard Strauss ) for piano four hands

Fonts

  • Speaking of Pianists (Alfred Knopf, 1957)
  • The Van Cliburn Legend (Doubleday, 1959)
  • The Appreciation of Music (Crown, 1966)
  • Music at the Crossroads (MacMillan, 1972)
  • Leopold Stokowski, A Profile (Hawthorne, 1979)

swell

personal data
SURNAME Chasins, Abram
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer, pianist, music writer and educator
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1987
Place of death New York City