By Jonathan Blumhofer

Violinist Kristin Lee revels in ragtime; pianist Jihye Chang commissioned a series of keyboard etudes from eight Boston-based composers.

Psychologically and emotionally crippling though the first months of the pandemic were, the times eventually gave way to creative work. When they did, pianist Jihye Chang, who teaches at Boston University, took advantage of the moment to commission a series of keyboard etudes from eight Boston-based composers that are now brought together on her new album.

Some of them seem to address the moment of their creation more forcefully than others.

Stratis Minakakis’ Three Etchings on Solitude, for instance, offers a turbulent study of sound and silence. Taking a Robert Lowell quote about Beethoven as its starting point, the writing is rumbling and often texturally murky. In this context, contrasting little details—quietly sustained pitches, sudden flourishes of notes, and the like—stand out strongly.

At times, William David Cooper’s Idée fixe consciously channels Brahms. Yet catching that reference isn’t mandatory: the music’s brooding, Berg-ish qualities come over clearly enough on their own. So does Cooper’s structuring of the whole—the etude’s closing section finds a fitting, if not entirely comforting, sense of resolution.

Meantime, John McDonald’s Fleetude is punching, urgent, and unsettled. So, though a bit less starkly, is Dan VanHassel’s A Bit of Noise in the System, with its play of bubbly arpeggios and sudden, dissonant attacks.

Eun Young Lee’s Nam-Ok Lee recollects the composer’s early piano lessons, with hazy textures suddenly morphing into formed fragments of melodies and chords. Yu-Hui Chang’s aphoristic Mind Stretch revels, too, sudden shifts of mood, character, and dynamics.

In between comes Ketty Nez’s belletude, a pulsing study in additive rhythms, and Marti Epstein’s bariolage. The latter, with its delicate, shimmering play of colors is enchanting.

Chang plays them all with an impressive sense of direction. Throughout, voicings are clearly delineated and her sense of musical character, as demonstrated in the sudden, impish ending of A Bit of Noise and the touching warmth of Idée fixe’s last pages, is assured.

Ragtime may not have been America’s first form of popular music, but it surely stands among its most enduring. Violinist Kristin Lee certainly seems to think so, as the style figures significantly on her album American Sketches.

Interestingly, Lee’s program only touches obliquely on Scott Joplin. His The Entertainer is the subject of a fascinating transformation at the hands of pianist/arranger Jeremy Ajani Jordan that brings in elements of stride (as well as, maybe, Stephane Grappelli and Claude Bolling).

Otherwise, the disc’s rag selections come from the pen of pianist-composer John Novacek. His Four Rags offer spades of character, often of the riotous variety, sometimes—as in the “4^th Street Drag”—of the slinky. In all of them, Lee and Jordan are completely simpatico and stylistically sure. They’re also a bit warmer and more spacious in this music than the composer and Leila Josefowicz were in their late-‘90s take on the same.

The duo’s rendition of Gershwin’s “But Not for Me” delivers more easygoing charm, as does James Louis Johnson’s Lament (whose title suggests a degree of melancholy that’s absent from the larger piece).

Historically, the most interesting item here is Henry Thacker Burleigh’s Southland Sketches. Best known as Antonin Dvorak’s student when the Czech master was teaching in New York, Burleigh’s effort sounds a lot like something the European master might have written—with, perhaps, a hint of “Swanee River” tucked into its third movement. Whatever the music lacks in originality, its blend of devotion, folksiness, and the finale’s study in syncopation, draw out strong playing from Lee and Jordan, especially over the last movement’s lively coda.

Amy Beach’s Romance shares some melodic and harmonic similarities with the Burleigh, though Beach got considerably more mileage out of her lyrical ideas. Here, Lee applies some of the bluesy practices of jazzier numbers to music that doesn’t necessarily need it; what’s more, both violin and piano—on this track played by Jun Cho—aren’t quite present enough in the big spots.

Lee and Jordan are in better form in Jonathan Ragonese’s non-poem 4 and Kevin Puts’ gorgeous Air. Monk’s Mood, the pair’s ode to Thelonious, is also a gem, marked by soulful fiddling and a fleet account of the keyboard part.

Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.