Crozet Community Orchestra Debuts Baghdasarian Rhapsody

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Visiting violinists Monika Chamasyan and Mark Dorosheff performed a waltz by Dmitri Shostakovitch as an encore.
Visiting violinists Monika Chamasyan and Mark Dorosheff performed a waltz by Dmitri Shostakovitch as an encore.

The Crozet Community Orchestra’s November 15 free concert featured the first—yes, it happened in Crozet first—American performance of Armenian composer Edouard Baghdasarian’s gorgeous Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra.

It was performed by visiting violin soloist Monika Chamasyan, who joined her husband Mark Dorosheff—a violinist with The Air Force Strings, whose regular gigs are for U.S. Vice President Joe Biden—in a repeat appearance with the CCO. CCO conductor and musical director Philip Clark did the arrangement for the piece, after searching as far as Armenia to find one. Chamasyan complimented the arrangement.

Both Chamasyan and Dorosheff, who also teach violin at their studio in Reston, gave stunning performances, and if they come back to Crozet—they performed here also in the CCO’s March concert–they are not to be missed.

Other pieces in the concert were the Petite Suite Armenienne by Diran Alexanian, The Hebrides Overture Op. 26 by Felix Mendelsohn, which Clark described as “a tone poem,” and Camille Saint-Saens’ Introduction and Rondo Capricioso for Violin and Orchestra, with Dorosheff as the soloist, assured and precise.

The CCO, which is becoming a community treasure, will perform a free Christmas concert Saturday, Dec. 12, at 6 p.m. at Crozet Baptist Church. It will include the Field School Boys Choir and the Crozet Community Handbell Choir directed by Chris Celella.

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