http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/artist/?ART_ID=SIMMI Watch Mikhail Simonyan play the last movement of Khachaturian's Violin Concerto recorded for "Two souls". This unusual coupling of the violin concertos by Aram Khachaturian and Samuel Barber is tailor-made for Mikhail Simonyan's Deutsche Grammophon debut. One soul is Armenian, the other American. Born in Novosibirsk, Simonyan has mixed Russian and Armenian parentage, but spent his formative years in the US. When he was 13, he toured the US as soloist with the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra; soon afterwards he moved to America and entered the Curtis Music Institute in Philadelphia. Simonyan's close rapport with Kristjan Järvi and his first collaboration with one of the world's best orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra, produce an extraordinarily fresh reading of the two concertos: "I've known Kristjan for 12 years -- he was at my very first concert at Lincoln Center," says Simonyan, "and we have performed many times together since then. If you share the same musical ideas, the interpretation becomes a completely different proposition. We opened the musical scores of these concertos and felt totally free." About the Barber concerto, Simonyan adds: "It's simply one of the most beautiful pieces in the string repertoire". He performs the work with a perfect American accent that evokes images of this vast country. The recording renders the quality of both concertos in an unprecedented way. It can be confidently expected that the ears of audience and critics alike will be pleasantly surprised. For more information please see: http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/cat/4779827 http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/twosouls http://www.mikhailsimonyan.com Find Deutsche Grammophon on Facebook and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/deutschegrammophon http://www.twitter.com/dgclassics