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  • Armenian Violinist, 21, Dazzles Crowd In S.F.

    ARMENIAN VIOLINIST, 21, DAZZLES CROWD IN S.F.
    By Richard Scheinin

    San Jose Mercury News, USA
    March 14 2006

    A kid named Khachatryan played music by Khachaturian in San Francisco
    on Sunday. Sergey Khachatryan, a 21-year-old violinist from Armenia,
    was making his local debut; he played like a poet, with a subtle and
    commanding mix of confidence, sensitivity and craft.

    This charismatic newcomer was performing with the venerable London
    Philharmonic Orchestra, which made the event extra-special. The entire
    program at Davies Symphony Hall was defined by the unexpected.

    Scheduled conductor Kurt Masur, who suffered heart palpitations in
    Dublin, Ireland, a few days earlier, sent along a protege as his
    substitute: Brazilian conductor Roberto Minczuk stepped up and did a
    superb job with Khachaturian's Violin Concerto and Mahler's Symphony
    No. 1.

    So the night, part of the San Francisco Symphony's Great Performers
    Series, offered its audience a double discovery: new soloist, new
    conductor. But the kid, Khachatryan -- he was the show.

    The concerto by Khachaturian, a father of Armenian "nationalist"
    music in the last century, is spiced with folkloric rhythms, themes and
    inflections. It also is sensuous, a little bit schmaltzy, and sheerly,
    at times eerily, beautiful. From the opening bars, the orchestra
    sounded exceptionally luminous -- those strings!

    And then came the soloist: crisp attack, warm singing tone, spot-on
    intonation. He is slender, with a thatch of curly black hair, and he
    isn't a showman; he is about clarity and control and expression.

    His cadenza in the first movement was cleanly delivered -- all those
    keening, up-sliding double-stops -- and emotionally full-blooded,
    without knocking you on the head. As it ended, with the orchestra
    sliding back in behind Khachatryan, a comfortable "duet" was going
    on between the soloist and his famous accompanists from London.

    The orchestra sounded great (not a big surprise): sparkling clarinet
    and winds; bounding cellos; and clarity all around, down to each
    ping of the harp. Minczuk, whose gestures are flowing and emphatic,
    seemed to have established a balance that allowed his players to
    speak as individuals and as a collective.

    There were ghostly tremulous effects in the low strings as the slow,
    lyrical second movement began. Here, Khachatryan showed a sort of
    late-night, bluesy restraint, clarifying the schmaltz. And as the
    third movement began, with a blast of brass, and then more bounding
    strings -- they sounded like a giant mandolin -- again he held himself
    in check, building tension.

    He pulled earthy sustained notes from his low strings, then soared
    way up high, before flying back downward, decelerating and shifting
    into a new tempo, dovetailing expertly with the orchestra as he went
    on to gobble up all the notes of the final racing sequences.

    The audience brought him back for several bows and, finally,
    Khachatryan offered an encore. It was nothing showy or fast; just the
    opposite, in fact: the Adagio from Bach's Sonata No. 3 in C major
    for Solo Violin, which unfolded sweetly, with beautiful control of
    the instrument (Khachatryan plays the "Huggins" Stradivarius, built
    in 1708).

    The violinist has been taken under Masur's wing. He also has performed
    with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in
    Amsterdam and, based on Sunday's evidence, is a winner.

    He returns soon, on March 29, for a recital at the Florence Gould
    Theater of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (www.performances.org).

    Poor Mahler. He played second fiddle to the young violinist on
    Sunday. His Symphony No. 1 in D major, known as the "Titan," was
    given a strong performance, with all its swooping and swooning bows
    to the natural world, its raspy horns, waltzing interludes and great
    brass anthems.

    It wasn't as refined and lovingly nuanced as the Mahler performances
    we've been hearing from the San Francisco Symphony and conductor
    Michael Tilson Thomas the past few years. The peeping pastoral sounds
    that dot the first movement weren't always exactly in place; there was
    some ragged brass playing in the third movement, where the orchestra
    momentarily lost its bearings amid klezmer-ish and other dance rhythms.

    But the fourth movement was high impact -- literally. The orchestra
    summoned entire storm systems of sound: crashing cymbals, tolling
    timpani, screeching strings and great brass pronouncements, with all
    eight horn players on their feet as Heaven's Gates, figuratively,
    opened.

    Even so, Khachatryan was the show.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/ news/columnists/14094288.htm
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