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Music Is A Family Affair For Acclaimed Violinist Performing In Princ

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  • Music Is A Family Affair For Acclaimed Violinist Performing In Princ

    MUSIC IS A FAMILY AFFAIR FOR ACCLAIMED VIOLINIST PERFORMING IN PRINCETON
    by By Mark Mobley

    The Star-Ledger
    http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2 009/01/music_is_a_family_affair_for_a.html
    Jan 8 2009
    NJ

    Sergey Khachatryan with Lusine Khachatryan. When: 8
    p.m. Wednesday. Where: Matthews Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, 91
    University Place, Princeton. How much: $35-$44. Call (609) 258-2787
    or go to mccarter.org.

    Listening to the debut CD Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan
    recorded as a teenager, it seems he was born to play the instrument
    extraordinarily well. But the critically acclaimed winner of two
    major competitions, who at 23 has already appeared or been scheduled
    with many of the world's greatest orchestras, says he's a fiddler
    by default.

    "It came very naturally because everyone in my family plays piano
    besides me. My dad, my mom, my sister," he says by phone from his home
    in Frankfurt. "My father always joked I was the most untalented one,
    so that's why he gave me the violin."

    It proved to be a good choice for Khachatryan, who appears in recital
    at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton on Wednesday with his pianist
    sister Lusine. He is on an extremely steep rise that began with winning
    the International Jean Sibelius competition in Helsinki in 2000 and
    continued with finishing first at the Queen Elisabeth competition in
    Brussels five years later. In recent seasons he's performed with the
    New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra,
    as well as the leading ensembles of London, Amsterdam and Tokyo.

    Khachatryan was born in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, in 1985. In 1993,
    the family moved to Germany -- where, he says, he found little support
    from the musical establishment. "All the career I have now I built by
    myself," he says. "I didn't have a father who was a millionaire. All I
    achieved I did through my playing." He acknowledges not every budding
    soloist has to enter competitions, but "for me it was the only way
    to get world recognition."

    Winning the quadrennial Queen Elisabeth came with an important
    perk. Each first-place finisher gets to play the 1708 "Huggins"
    Stradivarius until the next champ is crowned. "This instrument (gave)
    me so much possibility that I didn't know exists," he says. What he
    loves about its sound "is just warmness, how it carries in a big hall."

    Tone color and volume are just two of the countless issues he has to
    consider in rehearsal with his sister. "We feel very close as people,"
    he says. "The same blood is inside of us. Of course we argue and have
    had disagreements, but we both look at what is right for the music."

    On Wednesday, they will play the only violin sonata by Shostakovich,
    whose violin concerti Khachatryan recorded with the Orchestra National
    de France and Kurt Masur. They will also perform the violinist's
    favorite Brahms sonata, the first. "Brahms is famous for being very
    dramatic," Khachatryan says. "This is so different, really intimate."

    The program opens with the second partita by J.S. Bach, a suite of
    solo pieces that ends with one of the composer's most challenging,
    moving and heroic pieces, a chaconne. This set of variations is the
    "To be or not to be" speech for violinists, a test of technical skill
    and sustained musicality.

    Khachatryan says his favorite composers may vary from season to season,
    and his interpretations change from day to day, but he never strays
    very far from Bach, whose complete solo violin works he is recording
    over the next two years. "I have a special relationship with him,"
    he says. "When I play his music I literally purify my soul. I forget
    the real world and go to a different world, which is pure."
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