SHCS to Host Hakhnazaryan’s Cyberspace Debut

Cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan (photograph by Evgeny Evtyukhov, courtesy of Morahan Arts and Media)

Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan will probably not be a stranger to many Bay Area readers. He made his San Francisco debut in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, giving the second concert in San Francisco Performances’ 2017–2018 Young Masters Series. Next month, under the auspices of the Shriver Hall Concert Series (SHCS), Hakhnazaryan will present his digital world premiere concert. With pianist Armine Grigoryan as his accompanist, Hakhnazaryan will be featured on a recording made at the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan, Armenia. That recording will be streamed by SHCS next month as the third offering in its Spring 2021 Virtual Season.

Two of the works that Hakhnazaryan will perform had been played during his San Francisco debut. That program included Robert Schumann’s Opus 70 coupling of Adagio and Allegro movements originally written for horn and piano with a solo part that could also be taken by cello or violin. The other repeated piece will be Hakhnazaryan’s second encore selection for his San Francisco audience, a nocturne by fellow Armenian Eduard Bagdasarian, written for violin but translated over to cello with little difficulty.

For SHCS Hakhnazaryan will showcase another Armenian composer, Alexander Arutiunian, playing one of his earliest works, an impromptu for cello and piano completed in 1941. The other major work on the program will be another violin composition arranged for cello performance, César Franck’s A major sonata. (This arrangement was conceived by Jules Delsart.) The program will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s WoO 46 set of seven variations for cello and piano in E-flat major based on the duet “Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen” sung by Pamina and Pagageno in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute.

This performance will take place at 2:30 p.m. (Pacific time) on Sunday, March 14. The fee for admission will be $15, and SHCS has set up a Web page for online purchase. Once a ticket has been purchased, a hyperlink for viewing the performance will be made available and will be valid for additional visits until the following Wednesday.