Tchaikovsky: Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Op. 42: Mélodie in E flat major

At just 11 years of age, Sarah Chang was, quite simply, an undisputed violinistic phenomenon. She appeared with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic at the age of eight, playing Paganini's First Violin Concerto, and recorded this debut recital disc a year later. The Debut was her first of many future Classical Billboard best-selling albums. Gramophone Magazine proclaimed, “This is an astonishing disc. Sarah Chang’s playing will enthrall and captivate in equal measure.”

While Rachmaninov evokes purity in his 'Vocalise', Shostakovich intones a swansong, a song of death. In the warm timbre of Gérard Caussé's viola and the generous sonority of Brigitte Engerer's piano, all the melancholy and tenderness of Russia finds eloquent expression.

Violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti is recognized for her musical elegance and grace. Her playing has been described as “breathtakingly rich in tone and color” (St. Petersburg Times).

Praised by The American Record Guide as a “brilliant soloist” and The Oregonian for “a performance that glowed with inner warmth...” she has received numerous accolades for her musical artistry and technique. Many of her performances have been streamed online and broadcast on FM radio, including Performance Today. Her extensive solo and chamber music appearances have taken her across the United States and abroad, performing in such venues as New York’s Weill Recital Hall, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Tampa’s Morsani Hall, Gonfalone Oratory in Rome, Italy, and Edinburgh Castle.

Praised for her “big piano presence” (American Record Guide), Elizabeth Pridgen has distiguished herself as a soloist and avid chamber musician. Ms. Pridgen has recently joined the Georgian Chamber Players and is a member of Trio RPM with violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti and cellist Christopher Rex. A graduate of the Juilliard School and Peabody Conservatory of Music, Ms. Pridgen is currently a Distinguished Artist and Piano Chair at the McDuffie Center for Strings and holds the G. Leslie Fabian Chair of Music at the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University.

Robert McDuffie has appeared as soloist with most of the major orchestras of the world. He gave the World Premiere, with the Toronto Symphony, of Violin Concerto No. 2, “The American Four Seasons” - a work written by Philip Glass for Robert McDuffie. McDuffie is a GRAMMY® nominated artist, whose acclaimed recordings include the violin concertos of Mendelssohn, Bruch, Adams, Glass, Barber, Rozsa, Bernstein, William Schuman, and Viennese favorites. Robert McDuffie holds the Genelle and Mansfield Jennings Distinguished University Professor Chair at Mercer University in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. He is also the founder of The Rome Chamber Music Festival.

Recorded by Multi-GRAMMY award winning engineer Leslie Anne Jones, this album is truly a sonic feast for lovers of the violin and chamber music.

The Duo Intermezzo places strong emphasis on musical miniatures in their concert programming and on this CD performs small romances, lamentations and melodies as well as virtuoso pieces. All the pieces tell a dramatic, humorous or tragic short story in just a few minutes.

"The Slavonic works presented here include original works for trumpet, written by composers who are not well known to the general public, and also arrangements of popular works, ones that everyone must have heard at some time or another. The latter include Vocalise by Rachmaninov, Valse Sentimentale and the last movement, Mélodie, from Souvenir d’un lieu cher by Tchaikovsky, and the famous Flight of the Bumblebee, an orchestral interlude written by Nikolay Rimsky- Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. This recording represents an important new step for me; I hope it will give the listener as much pleasure as it gave me. “ Romain Leleu