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The Armenian-American violist, Kim Kashkashian, was born to Armenian parents in Michigan. She attended high school at Interlochen Center for the Arts, studied the viola at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Karen Tuttle and legendary violist Walter Trampler (Bachelor of Music degree), and obtained her Master of Music degree from New School of Music Philadelphia. She also worked intensively with mentor Felix Galimir at the Marlboro Music Festival. She won the 2nd prize at the 1980 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the 1980 ARD International Music Competition in Munich.
Inspiring worldwide critical acclaim, violist Kim Kashkashian has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "an artist who combines a probing, restless musical intellect with enormous beauty of tone." The New York Times has joined in these accolades, praising her "rich, mellow timbre and impressive artistry."
In recent seasons, Kim Kashkashian has appeared as soloist with the major orchestras in New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London, Milan, Münchner Philharmoniker, Tokyo Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, including performances with Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach and Riccardo Muti. She has performed recitals at the Metropolitan Museum's Kaufmann Hall and the 92nd Street "Y" in New York City, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston, as well as in Washington DC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cleveland and Los Angeles and in many major music centers in Europe as Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Rome, Istanbul, Milan and Athens, and in Tokyo.
Kim Kashkashian's commitment to chamber music, which began during years of participation at the Marlboro Music Festival where she was strongly influenced by her work with Felix Galimir, continues through appearances at the Verbier, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Marlboro, Ravinia and Stavanger Festivals. Together with Yuri Bashmet, Nobuko Imai and Tabea Zimmermann she was one of the four violists featured at the International Viola Festival in Kromberg. Current ongoing partnerships include duos with pianist Robert Levin, percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky, and harpsichordist Robert Hill. She has performed with the Tokyo, Guarneri, and Galimir Quartets and toured with a unique quartet, which included violinists, Gidon Kremer and Daniel Phillips and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Kim Kashkashian's quest for new directions and forms, which she obtains through intense and continuous work with composers, is an active part of her musical life. As a result of these relationships with such composers as Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, György Kurtág, Arvo Pärt and Betty Olivero, and commissioned works from Péter Eötvös, Ken Ueno, Thomas Larcher, Lera Auerbach, and Tigran Mansurian, she has extensively enlarged the repertoire for the viola.
Her 2007-2008 season began with an intensive festival month, which brings her to the Bartok Festival in Hungary, to Verbier, Salzburg and to the Oslo Chamber Music Festival. In October, she performed together with Robyn Schulkowksy and Tigran Mansurian in Poznan and Warsaw at the Malta Festival. In in the autumn 2007 she went with Robert Levin as her partner into Europe on tour, among other cities into Berlin, Paris, Rome and Milan. The year 2008 broiught ther things the German first performance of the viola concerto of Betty Olivero with the Münchener Kammerorchester as well as a concert with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst at the Salzburger Festspiele.
Recordings by Kim Kashkashian give an index of the range of her activities. After earlier recordings of W.A. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Divertimento KV 563 with DGG and Sony, her 30-year relationship with ECM Records (since 1985) has produced an extensive discography, either together with her longstanding chamber music partners (Robert Levin, piano & Robyn Schulkowsky, percussion) or various orchestra works, with a focus on the awarded recordings of the Johannes Brahms Sonatas (Robert Levin, piano), the CD “Voci” with works by Luciano Berio (Robyn Schulkowsky, percussion) or albums with pieces by Tigran Mansurian and with songs vy Guastavino, Alberto Ginastera and others with Robert Levin as her partner (released in the autumn 2007). She has been featured on over 30 albums and performs pieces from both classical and contemporary composers, working among others with Gidon Kremer and Yo-Yo Ma, the Wiener Philharmoniker and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Her discography includes the complete Paul Hindemith sonatas, the concertos of Béla Bartók, Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Luciano Berio, Kancheli, Olivero, and Mansurian, J.S. Bach's Sonatas for viola da gamba (with Keith Jarrett), “Hayren” (music of Tigran Mansurian and Komitas), and “Asturiana”, songs from Spain and Argentina. She also played the viola in the soundtrack of the film Ulysses' Gaze, together with Eleni Karaindrou. Her albums have won many awards, notably the 1999 Edison Prize for her recording, with Robert Levin, of the Johannes Brahms Sonatas; and the Cannes Classical Award for a premiere recording by soloist with orchestra in 2001 for her June 2000 recording of concertos by Béla Bartók, Péter Eötvös and György Kurtág. She won a 2013 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for the 2012 album Kurtág / Ligeti: Music for Viola.
Kim Kashkashian’s extensive teaching activities have included professorships at the University of Indiana in Bloomington and at Conservatories in Freiburg and Berlin, Germany. In September 2000, she began teaching viola and chamber music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Among her students are Julia Rebekka Adler, Sheila Browne, Lim Soon Lee and Diemut Poppen. She is the founder and artistic director of Music for Food, a musician-led initiative for local hunger relief. In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, she was also awarded the George Peabody Medal for her exceptional contribution to music in America. She and now resides with her daughter in Boston. |
