Sergey Khachatryan performs Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1 in Philadelphia

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Kurt Masur leads a program of sun-dappled days and shadowy nights. The concert opens with the sweet and cheerful sounds of Brahms's Second Symphony, composed during a summer holiday in 1877. Next violinist Sergey Khachatryan makes his Philadelphia Orchestra subscription debut with Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto--filled with music that is questioning and uncertain, before culminating in energetic resolution. Richard Strauss's wry and spritely tone poem about spirited hijinks and practical jokes rounds off this delicious evening.

Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 77, was originally written in 1948. One critic described Sergry's performance of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto as "one of the most mature and complete interpretations of this piece it is possible to imagine".

Sergey Khachatryan, born in 1985 in Yerevan, Armenia, picked up the violin aged five, although "I never counted myself as a child prodigy," says violinist Sergey Khachatryan. In December 2000 he won First Prize in the VIII International Jean Sibelius competition in Helsinki, becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In 2005 he claimed the First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels. He was elected as March's Artist of the Month 2009 by the Mariinsky Thaetre St. Petersburg and their Artistic and General Director Valery Gergiev.

Friday April 17, 2009
8:00 PM
Verizon HallThe Philadelphia Orchestra

Kurt Masur - Conductor
Sergey Khachatryan - Violin

Program:
Brahms - Symphony No. 2
Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No. 1
Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks

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