Kim Kashkashian
August 31, 1952 - Detroit
About
Kim Kashkashian is considered one of the world’s top violists, a unique voice in the panorama. Find her music on medici.tv!
Kim Kashkashian, internationally recognized as a unique voice on the viola, was born of Armenian parents in Detroit (Michigan), in 1952. Armenian folk songs, sung to her by the baritone voice of her father, had an important impact in the development of her musicality.
She began playing the violin at the age of 8, under the tutelage of Ara Zarounian, and then switched to viola at the Interlochen Arts Academy at the age of 12. From then on, the viola would be her chosen instrument. Major influences during her studies were Walter Trampler and Karen Tuttle at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and at the Marlboro Music Festival where she worked closely with Felix Galimir.
Kashkashian first gained international recognition as recipient of the Pro Musicis award, and as a prize winner in the Tertis and ARD Munich International Competitions, which led to a creative association with the Lockenhaus Festival led by Gidon Kremer.
Kim Kashkashian has appeared as a solo violist with major orchestras including the Chicago Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Berlin Orchestra, Milan Orchestra, London Orchestra, Tokyo Orchestra, and Vienna Orchestra, working with conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Christoph Eschenbach, Riccardo Chailly, and Dennis Russell Davies.
Her recital appearances include the great concert halls of Vienna, Rome, Paris, Berlin, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and London with her duo partners Robert Levin and Robyn Schulkowsky (also playing chamber music with piano and percussion).
Kim Kashkashian’s quest for new directions and forms of music making is an active element of her musical life. Her work with the composers György Kurtág, Giya Kancheli, Krzysztof Penderecki, Ken Ueno, Betty Olivero, Tigran Mansurian, and Peter Eötvös has extensively enriched the viola repertoire (you can find an example of these productive collaborations in our archives videos). In 2003, Kim recorded In Praise of Dreams, with the saxophonist Jan Garbarek, and during her career, she took part in many recordings of traditional Armenian music. Kim Kashkashian’s viola repertoire includes many recordings of original and contemporary pieces, including the Alto Concerto by Linda Bouchard and Replica by Peter Eötvös, which is dedicated to her, and many other works.
Kashkashian has collaborated with the Tokyo, Guarneri, and Orion quartets and toured with a unique quartet which included Daniel Phillips, Gidon Kremer, and Yo Yo Ma. She is a frequent participant at the Ravinia, Marlboro, Salzburg, and Verbier Festivals.
After her early recordings of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Divertimento with DGG and Sony, a long-term relationship with ECM Records created an extensive discography which included the award-winning Brahms Sonatas, the complete Hindemith Sonatas, the concertos of Bartók, Eötvös, Kurtág, Berio, Kancheli, Olivero and Mansurian, and Asturiana, songs from Spain and Argentina. Her recordings are the product of important collaborations, including with Robert Levin, Yo-Yo Ma, Guarneri Quartet, Tigran Mansurian, and many others. Among other awards, she won the Edison Prize (for the recording of the Brahms Sonatas with Robert Levin) and, in 2013, Kim Kashkashian won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for her album Kurtág & Ligeti: Music For Viola.
After living for a long time in Berlin, Kim Kashkashian now resides in Boston with her daughter, and holds a position teaching viola and chamber music at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she is fully engaged in training a new generation of violists and in broadening the limits of her instrument (in fact, in a 2000 interview she noted that the viola in America it is “just beginning to be reluctantly respected”).