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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (August 4, 2025) — On September 12, 2025, Cedille Records releases HOME, featuring 25-year-old rising American violinist Karisa Chiu and renowned Chinese pianist Zhu Wang. This collection of five works explores the many meanings of “home” throughout Chiu’s life and includes Jean Sibelius’s Five Pieces, Claude Debussy’s Violin Sonata, Augusta Read Thomas’s Incantation for Solo Violin, Cyril Scott’s Lotus Land (arr. Fritz Kreisler), and Gabriel Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1. A finalist in Cedille Records’ inaugural Emerging Artist Competition (2021), Chiu is the first new violinist in over 20 years to record a solo violin album for Cedille.
Since its founding in 1989 under the guidance of James Ginsburg, Cedille Records has built a reputation for elevating Chicago’s leading classical musicians and composers. The label nurtures the next generation through its Emerging Artist Competition (EAC), which offers soloists and small ensembles from the Chicago area the opportunity to record a professional debut album. Following the success of inaugural winner, Julian Velasco, and his critically acclaimed album, As We Are, Karisa Chiu’s HOME marks Cedille’s second EAC-related album release and is a testament to the label’s ongoing commitment to supporting and elevating Chicago’s most promising emerging talent.
Drawing from her Chicago upbringing, Korean-Chinese heritage, and reflections during the pandemic, HOME is an evocative exploration of belonging and the meaning of “home.” “Upon hearing the word ‘home,’ each person will recall something different — a community, a person, a city, a culture, a memory. This album is not only a story of what home means to me, but an invitation for you to reflect on the things in your life that define home,” Chiu writes in her personal note for the booklet.
The theme of hardship also binds the album: Debussy composed his Violin Sonata in the shadow of his terminal cancer; Sibelius wrote during a dark period of relapse and financial despair as war loomed over Europe; Thomas composed Incantation for a friend facing terminal illness; and Fauré created his sonata amid the heartbreak of a lost five-year relationship. Viewed through Chiu’s personal perspective, these works — born from grief and loss — gain new significance, showing how art can evolve, deepen, and resonate in unexpected ways.
Sibelius’s Five Pieces and Debussy’s Violin Sonata entered Chiu’s life through her father, who performed them in a violin-piano duo concert during his senior year of college that united him with his future wife. These pieces became fixtures in Karisa’s home as her parents played them countless times throughout her childhood, soundtracking early memories of love and family. At Curtis, Chiu discovered Thomas’s Incantation, which, after learning of Thomas’s connection to Chicago, became a symbol of both her ties to her hometown and her evolving bond with the Curtis community. Raised in a mixed cultural background, with a Chinese father and a Korean mother, Chiu returned to Korea with her mother for the first time in almost a decade in 2022, and gave a recital together. Amidst family and Korean culture, Chiu felt a profound sense of belonging as they performed Fauré’s Violin Sonata. To this day, playing that sonata transports her back to Korea, embodying music’s power to bridge time and memory. While each piece was initially written in times of loss, these works gain a new perspective through Chiu’s personal lens, transforming sorrow into a narrative of connection, remembrance, and belonging.
Born into a Swedish-speaking family in Finland, Sibelius embraced Finnish nationalism by incorporating Finnish language, literature, and folk music into his works. His Five Pieces for Violin and Piano blends urbane salon music with Finnish folk elements. Engaging in a dynamic interplay, the violin leads with virtuosic flourishes and wide leaps. At the same time, the piano provides harmonic depth and rhythmic contrasts, creating a seamless blend of sophistication and light-hearted charm. From lively rondos to serene, pastoral evocations, these works strike a balance between sophistication and national identity, showcasing Sibelius's ability to fuse diverse musical influences.
A short, three-movement work, Debussy’s Violin Sonata is a farewell and return, reaching toward distant tonalities and Iberian influences. The first movement features shifting rhythms and modal harmonies, including the Phrygian cadence — a shared harmonic trait with Sibelius’s music. The second movement presents a playful scherzo marked by key changes and enigmatic lyricism. The third movement recalls the first’s theme in a distant, fragmented manner before venturing into sweeping, pentatonic gestures and exploring unconventional textures, embodying a vitality that defies classical form.
A lyrical, chant-inspired solo for violin, Thomas’ Incantation unfolds with patience and quiet intensity. Derived from the Latin incantatio, meaning “art of enchanting,” incantations are often associated with funereal practices; Thomas wrote hers for violinist Catherine Tait, who performed it just weeks before succumbing to terminal cancer. Beginning questioningly, the work gracefully unfolds into a lyrical piece, contemplatively moving to the first moment of vertical harmony: a minor sixth followed by another, a half step lower, eventually ending on a question: a major seventh lingering in the air, unresolved.
Cyril Scott’s Lotus Land reflects ideas of Eastern mysticism, relaxation, and dreaming. Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey and Tennyson’s poem “The Lotos-Eaters,” the lotus symbolizes an escape from modernity and the loss of self in peaceful reverie. In Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement for violin and piano, the music captures this idealized indolence through cozy harmonies and exotic scales, with the violin dancing lightly above the piano’s lush textures.
Finally, Fauré’s Violin Sonata provides a standout close to the album. One of Fauré’s first mature works, the piece is celebrated for its inventiveness and expressivity. The first movement, influenced by Schumann, shifts from intense pathos to quiet introspection, navigating dramatic changes with ease and elegance. The second movement introduces a heartbeat rhythm in the piano that evolves into a waltz, symbolizing the transition from grief to joy. In the final two movements, the joy is sustained as the music alternates between exuberance and exquisite lyricism, culminating in gentle repose.
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