Sample Simonyan, CSO at Riverbend

Mikhail Simonyan

Just call him “Mischa.”
   That was my introduction, by telephone, to Mikhail Simonyan, guest artist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. June 22 at Riverbend.
   Siberian born Simonyan is one of the world’s emerging violin stars.
   He made his U.S. debut with the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1999, when he was 13.  He learned Polish composer Karol Szymanowski’s little known Violin Concerto No. 1 just for the occasion.
   To mark his CSO debut, he will perform the well known “Havanaise” by Saint-Saens and Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen” (“Gypsy Airs”).  Assistant conductor Eric Dudley will lead a sampler of “Vintage Classics” comprising Berlioz’ “Corsair Overture,” Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome,” Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat” Suite No. 1 and “Revel” from Turina’s “Danzas Fantásticas.”
    The evening will begin with a sampler of another sort, a wine-tasting at 6 p.m. in the newly opened National City Pavilion adjacent to Riverbend Pavilion, where the concert takes place.      
   Simonyan has won a fistful of competitions and prizes, in Russia and elsewhere.  Just 22, he has toured the U.S. with Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra, performed with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops, and represented the performing arts and Russia at the 42^nd annual International Achievement Summit in Washington D.C. in 2004.  His debut recording of the Prokofiev Sonatas for Violin and Piano with pianist Alexei Podkorytov will be released in October by Delos.
    Not bad for a kid who at age 5, was told he wasn’t talented enough to enter music school in his native Novosibirsk.
    That, he said, with a laugh, “was actually quite a story.”
    “We had a small, black-and-white television, and one morning I woke up and somebody was playing the violin.  I said to my mother, ‘I want that.’  It was probably an advertisement for a concert and the second my mother turned around, the picture was off.  For two months she could not figure out what I wanted.  Then I heard it on TV again and she took me to the music school.”
    The music school was the first floor of a five-story apartment building.  A test was required for admission.
   “There was a very long hallway, and on the right and left were the classrooms where students took the lessons.  I was fascinated by all this sound.  Somebody was playing the trumpet, piano, percussion, accordion, whatever, so I got completely unorganized.  When it was time for me to take the test, the teacher told me to clap three times.  I clapped four times.  They told my mother I was not talented enough.”
    However, there was a teacher standing by who needed the money, “so she said, ‘I will take this guy,’” said Simonyan.  He won a small regional competition at age 8 and “there and then, we really got serious about it.”
    Simonyan, who is of Armenian and Russian heritage, follows in the footsteps of fellow Novosibirskians Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin, both of whom have reached the top echelon of violinists worldwide.  When he was 13, the executive director of the ARYO Edythe Holbrook, whom Simonyan calls “my American mother,” contacted his teacher Arnold Katz looking for someone who played the Szymanowski concerto.  “He said, ‘I don’t know anybody who plays this concerto, but I know a young guy who would like to learn it.’  He called me and said ‘I want you to learn Szymanowski Concerto’ and I said, ‘which concerto?’  I didn’t even know who is this Szymanowski.”
    Simonyan happily agreed, however, learned the music and played it for Katz, who said “in two months, you’re going to go to the United States.”
    Simonyan decided to pursue his studies in the U.S. and enrolled at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia to study with Viktor Danchenko, a student of legendary Russian violinist David Oistrakh.  Danchenko is “still the only guy I trust in my music life,” Simonyan said, “and whenever I have the time, I go and play for him.”
    Comparisons to Oistrakh have cropped up in reviews of Simonyan’s performances, but he quickly dismisses them.  “If the media want to use this face, then it’s fine.  Of course, it’s a big privilege for me to go with it.  To be honest, I don’t think it fits me.”
    Coincident with his international career, Simonyan has become a bit of a diplomat, too.  In 2002 he played for the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland.  As an honoree at the International Achievement Summit in Washington D.C. in 2003, he met President George W. Bush, rubbed shoulders with Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, General Wesley Clark and Secretary of State Colin Powell.  He had a nice chat with former president Bill Clinton and met Aretha Franklin and George Clooney.
    As a recipient of the highest honors in Russia, he has met former president (now prime minister) Vladimir Putin “several times.”
    “I was always interested in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia,” said Simonyan.  “I’ve done a lot of concerts in Washington for members of Congress or at the Kennedy Center.  A bunch of them are especially for politicians.  I like to connect people from Russia and the United States.”
    Although he is currently based in the U.S. ( Philadelphia), “home is always going to be where my parents are, the apartment where I grew up” (in Novosibirsk), he said.
    Still he describes himself as “definitely not one of those regular violinists who practice, play concerts and go home.  I do a lot of crazy stuff.  I enjoy sky diving.  I’ve tried motorcycles.  My life is one big enjoyment of all things.”
    Violinist Mikhail Simonyan performs with the CSO led by Eric Dudley at 7:30 p.m. June 22 at Riverbend Music Center.  Tickets are $18 for the lawn, $26-$46 for the pavilion, $13.50 for students, $15 (lawn) and $20-$35 (pavilion) for seniors. Children 12 and under are $12.50 for the pavilion, free to the lawn with a ticketed adult.
    Tickets for the pre-concert wine tasting are $15 and do not include concert ticket.
    Order online at www.cincinnatisymphony.org or call (513) 381-3300.