Narek Arutyunian, Clarinet

Biography

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 performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital and the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and for the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Lied Center of Kansas, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota, Weis Center for the Performing Arts, Westport Arts Center, Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, Chamber On The Mountain in Ojai, CA, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, 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 a recent last-minute engagement at the Tanglewood Festival, 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, 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. He has also performed as both a clarinetist and Klezmer soloist at the Fiddler on the Rood in Yiddish off-Broadway production.

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 then earned a Master’s Degree with Mr. Neidich at the Manhattan School of Music on a Leon Russianoff Memorial Scholarship.