Abram Chasins Collection

Summary: Abram Chasins was born in New York City. He taught at the Curtis Institute (1926-1935) and appeared in solo recitals and with leading orchestras everywhere (1935-1946). He made his professional debut playing the solo part in his own Piano Concerto No. 1 in F minor (1928) with the Philadelphia Orchestra and became the first American composer of the younger generation to be performed by Arturo Toscanini. Chasins often played and recorded duo-piano works with his wife, the pianist Constance Keene. When Mr. Chasins retired from concertizing (1946), he became the musical director of WQXR, the radio network of The New York Times. Chasins also published several books and was an adjudicator for various piano competitions, including the Van Cliburn Competition.

Full History: When the most versatile musicians in the history of American music are reckoned up, the name of Abram Chasins must surely find a very prominent place on the roster. He has excelled as composer, pianist, musicologist, author, pedagogue (in both the studio and the classroom), and media administrator.

Born in New York City, Mr. 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.

But he became famous for many other aspects of his musical career as well. More than a 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 Gabilowitsch 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 protg 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. Mr. 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 nation-wide standard for classical music programming which has never been surpassed.

"Speaking of Pianists" (Alfred Knopf: 1957) was Mr. Chasins's 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 Mr. Chasins has 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 Formdation awards.

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