UPCOMING PERFORMANCE

Narek Arutyunian, Clarinetist

with Christopher Goodpasture, Pianist

Photo by Christian Steiner

Sunday, January 27, 2019
3:00 pm / Logan House

(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023
Detailed map and directions

Program
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 184 - Francis Poulenc
Pièce en forme de Habanera - Maurice Ravel
Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet - Igor Stravinsky
Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56 - Bela Bartok
GRA for Clarinet - Elliott Carter
Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde - Richard Wagner (Arr. Franz Liszt)
Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120 - Johannes Brahms

Meet the Artists!
Reception will follow the performance.

General Admission $25.00

BIOGRAPHY

Narek Arutyunian, Clarinetist

Photo by Keith Saunders
 

2017 Leon Russianoff Memorial Award
First Prize, 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions
Rhoda Walker Teagle Concert Prize
Brownville Concert Series Prize
Leona Green Award for Winds
The Embassy Series Prize
Meridian Symphony Prize
Usedom Music Festival Prize

THE WASHINGTON POST:
"Arutyunian’s playing reaches passionate depths with seemingly effortless technical prowess, beguiling sensitivity and an energetic stage presence. [His] deepest notes were at once vibrant and enveloping. His highest range had the clarity of a vibrant coloratura."

THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER:
"A challenge of any clarinet recital is to transcend the familiar sound of the instrument…Narek Arutyunian presented a wealth of colors, voices, articulations. We heard dazzling technique in the service of coherent and considered chamber music."

CLASSICAL (96.3 FM):
"His performance stopped time."

THE AUSTRALIAN:
"Arutyunian impressed with his crystalline articulation and expressive warmth."
 

Clarinetist Narek Arutyunian is an artist who “reaches passionate depths with seemingly effortless technical prowess and beguiling sensitivity” (The Washington Post). As soloist with orchestra, his performances include the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall, Artie Shaw’s Concerto for Clarinet with The Boston Pops, the Mozart Concerto with Oregon’s Newport Symphony and New York’s St. Thomas Orchestra, appearances with Prague Radio Symphony, the Kaliningrad Philharmonic, the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, and a recording of the Weber Concertino for clarinet with the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra.

As First Prize Winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Mr. Arutyunian was presented in debut recitals in New York at Merkin Concert Hall and in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center to rave reviews. He has also been engaged to perform at Carnegie’s Weill Recital and the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, the Lied Center of Kansas, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, the Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota, the Weis Center for the Performing Arts, the Westport Arts Center, the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, the Paramount Theater (VT), Chamber on the Mountain in Santa Barbara, Tri-County Concerts Association in Wayne, PA, St. John Armenian Church of Michigan, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music in Tucson, the Aaron Copland School of Music/Queens College, and Iowa State, Pepperdine, Southern Adventist and Missouri State Universities. In addition to solo recitals, he consistently receives acclaim for his educational outreach programs in New York City public schools and around the country.

Mr. Arutyunian has performed extensively in Australia, Asia and in Europe, including at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Palazzo del Principe in Genoa. Festival appearances include return engagements at the Marlboro Music Festival and at Juilliard’s ChamberFest, where he performed Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayer, the New York Festival of Song, Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival in Washington, Krzyzowa Music Festival in Poland, Germany’s Usedomer Musikfestival, Musica Viva’s Huntington Estate and Sydney festivals in Australia, and Young Concert Artists Festivals in Tokyo and Beijing.

Born in Armenia, Narek Arutyunian’s family moved to Moscow when he was three. As a teenager, he won First Prizes in the International Young Musicians Competition in Prague and the Musical Youth of the Planet Competition in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory as a student of Evgeny Petrov, received a Bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Charles Neidich, and continued his studies with Mr. Neidich at the Manhattan School of Music on a Leon Russianoff Memorial Scholarship, where he received a Master’s Degree in 2018. He receives career support from the Guzik Foundation in California. Mr. Arutyunian’s clarinet is a personal gift from the conductor and violinist Vladimir Spivakov.

Narek Arutyunian is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc.

Biography

Christopher Goodpasture, Pianist

 
Praised by the Washington Post for his “sparkling, highly musical” playing, Christopher Goodpasture has established himself as a musician of refined style. He has performed recitals in concert venues throughout North America, including the Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.), Benaroya Hall (Seattle), Koerner Hall (Toronto), Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall (New York), Bing Concert Hall (San Francisco), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Recent and upcoming orchestral appearances include concertos with the Sioux City Symphony, The Oakville Symphony, Northumberland Orchestra, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of New York. His upcoming album release on Yarlung Records is entitled Pollination, an exploration of sound world and atmosphere seen through the eyes of composers including Bartók, Janácek, Debussy, Haydn, Takemitsu and Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe.

Mr. Goodpasture is a top-prize winner of the Washington International, Seattle International, Iowa International and Dallas International Piano Competitions, as well as the Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Competition for Pianists. He holds graduate degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School, where his teachers included Hung-Kuan Chen, Peter Frankl, Jerome Lowenthal and Christopher Elton. Born in Los Angeles, California, his formal training began at the Pasadena Conservatory, where his studies included composition with composer Andrew Norman. He continued his studies with Stewart Gordon and John Perry at the University of Southern California and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

A sought-after chamber musician, Mr. Goodpasture has been a fellow at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, at Aspen with David Finckel and Wu Han in Aspen, at the Music Academy of the West, and in the festivals of Kneisel Hall, Sarasota and Banff. He has also collaborated are members of the Takacs, Ysaye, St. Lawrence, Amenda, Guarneri, and Tokyo String Quartets, and worked with pianists Seymour Lipkin, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert Levin, Claude Frank, Leon Fleisher and violinists Pamela Frank and Sylvia Rosenberg.

Christopher Goodpasture is a member of Ensemble Connect, a fellowship program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and the Weill Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and with an emphasis on audience engagement, teaching and performing chamber music.  

More information at ChristopherGoodpasture.com

Zlatomir Fung, Cellist
Photo by Matt Dine

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Zlatomir Fung, Cellist

3:00 pm, Logan House
(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023
Detailed map and directions

Additional Information

Busch Trio
Photo by Blake Ezra

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Busch Trio

Omri Epstein, piano
Mathieu van Bellen, violin
Ori Epstein, cello 

3:00 pm, Logan House
(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023
Detailed map and directions

Additional Information

2019 - 2020 Series:

Tomer Gewirtzman, Pianist
Photo by Christian Steiner

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Tomer Gewirtzman, Pianist

3:00 pm, Logan House
(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023
Detailed map and directions

Additional Information

Arianna String Quartet

Michele Levin, Pianist

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Arianna String Quartet
and Michele Levin, Pianist

3:00 pm, Logan House
(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023
Detailed map and directions

Additional Information

Former SYSO musician Heidi Lehwalder is an internationally renowned harpist who has performed and taught around the globe. In recognition of Lehwalder's remarkable career and her ongoing dedication to coaching young musicians, SYSO is thrilled to present her with their first-ever Distinguished Alum Award at The Power of Music Benefit Luncheon, April 22, 2018.

Heidi Lehwalder's career highlights include:

• First recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize (now the Avery Fisher Career Grant)
• Only harpist to ever tour with the famed Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont
• Served as Professor of Harp at the School of Music at the University of Washington
• Appeared on Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on CBS at age 14
• Performed as guest artist with more than 65 orchestras including: New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, and, of course, Seattle Symphony where she has appeared 55 times