Abram Chasins

When the most versatile musicians in the history of American music are considered, Abram Chasins will surely find a prominent place on the roster. He has excelled as a composer, pianist, musicologist, author, teacher (in the both the studio and the classroom) and media administrator.

Born in New York City, Chasins studied at the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute and Columbia University. His major teachers included such legendary musicians as Ernest Hutcheson and Josef Hofmann. From 1926 to 1935, he taught at Curtis and, for a decade beginning in 1935, he was an outstanding pianist throughout the world, appearing in solo recitals and with leading orchestras everywhere. Besides his solo engagements and recordings, he also played and recorded duo-piano works with his wife, the pianist Constance Keene.

Chasins became famous for many other aspects of his musical career as well. More than one hundred of his compositions have been published, performed and recorded. As fortune would have it, he made his professional debut playing the solo part in his own Piano Concerto No. 1 in F Minor (1928) with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ossip Gabrilowitsch at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and, later, Carnegie Hall in New York. He also played his second Piano Concerto in F Sharp Minor, dating from 1931, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. He attained an international reputation in his early 20s as a protege of Josef Hofmann. Subsequently, he became the first American composer of the younger generation to be performed by Arturo Toscanini; the great maestro chose his "Parade" and "Flirtation in a Chinese Garden" for a concert with the New York Philharmonic. Chasins retired from the concert stage in 1946 to devote himself entirely to the musical directorship of radio station WQXR, the radio network of the New York Times with which he had been affiliated since 1943. His tenure established a nationwide standard for classical music programming which has never been surpassed.

"Speaking of Pianists" (Alfred Knopf, 1957) was Chasins' first published book; it has become an international source book. Other volumes from his hand, among them "The Van Cliburn Legend" (Doubleday, 1959), "The Appreciation of Music" (Crown, 1966), "Music at the Crossroads" (MacMillan, 1972) and "Leopold Stokowski, A Profile" (Hawthorne, 1979), also won wide attention.

As an adjudicator, Chasins served on jury panels for the Van Cliburn and National Federation of Music Clubs Competitions, the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera auditions, the Chopin Prize and the Rachmaninoff and Leventritt Foundation awards.

Chasins was invited to become Musician-in-Residence at the University of Southern California, a post created specifically for him. In the course of his stay, he was honored by the City of Los Angeles for "distinguished service in transforming USC's campus 'rock station' into a strong cultural force and a nationally prominent broacasting entity" Previously, as a juror for the Cliburn Competition, he had been named an "Honorary Citizen of the State of Texas."

Chasins became especially well-known for his "Three Chinese Pieces" (A Shanghai Tragedy, Flirtation in a Chinese Garden, and Rush Hour in Hong Kong), originally published in 1926. A revised edition of these pieces was published by IPAM in 1990 with a preface by Constance Keene. Copies are available directly from IPAM; contact the Curator for details.

Chasins died in 1987.

SERIES DESCRIPTION

SERIES I - MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS 1