Biography
Among American violinists Ani Kavafian commands particular esteem for her contributions to chamber music and contemporary works. Her father entered the world in Bulgaria as the child of an Armenian family that had fled the Ottoman Empire’s brutal suppression of Armenians in 1914–1915; he later escaped Bulgaria’s Communist regime and established himself in Turkey. There he served as principal violist of the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and met Ani’s mother, a member of its first violin section.
During her childhood in Istanbul, Ani remembers an absence of overt anti-Armenian feeling until the 1956 anti-Greek riots sparked by the Cyprus independence crisis. The Kavafian family then departed Turkey and made their home in suburban Detroit, where Ani’s younger sister Ida had already been born on October 29, 1952. Although Ani pursued piano studies, she frequently pressed her ear to the door of her mother’s practice room to listen to the violin. Beginning in 1957 the sisters studied violin with Ara Zerounian and subsequently with Mischa Mischakoff, whom Ani recalls as a demanding instructor focused on precise intonation; on one occasion he deliberately untuned her strings, performed the passage flawlessly in tune, and insisted she replicate the feat with the words, “No excuses! No matter what your open strings are doing you should be able to adjust.”
In 1966 Ani entered the Juilliard School in New York, studying under Ivan Galamian. Ida followed the same path, arriving at Juilliard in 1969; the sisters have since appeared together frequently in chamber settings. That same year Ani made her New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, and her European debut took place in Paris in 1973. Both violinists developed prominent careers: during the 1970s Ani performed extensively with leading orchestras worldwide, and in the 1980s she joined the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music.
She became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1979 and remains its senior participant—an organization that later welcomed Ida as well. While she holds deep affection for the standard repertory, above all the concertos of Mozart, Brahms, and Mendelssohn, Ani is most closely identified with twentieth-century music. She has given the premieres of Henri Lazarof’s Concerto for violin and string orchestra and Tod Machover’s Concerto for hyper violin and orchestra, the latter employing a violin as input to a computer for extended sonorities.
Ani is married to artist Bernard Mindich, and their son Matthew shows promise as a cello student. She performs on the 1736 instrument known as the Muir-Mackenzie Stradivarius.
During her childhood in Istanbul, Ani remembers an absence of overt anti-Armenian feeling until the 1956 anti-Greek riots sparked by the Cyprus independence crisis. The Kavafian family then departed Turkey and made their home in suburban Detroit, where Ani’s younger sister Ida had already been born on October 29, 1952. Although Ani pursued piano studies, she frequently pressed her ear to the door of her mother’s practice room to listen to the violin. Beginning in 1957 the sisters studied violin with Ara Zerounian and subsequently with Mischa Mischakoff, whom Ani recalls as a demanding instructor focused on precise intonation; on one occasion he deliberately untuned her strings, performed the passage flawlessly in tune, and insisted she replicate the feat with the words, “No excuses! No matter what your open strings are doing you should be able to adjust.”
In 1966 Ani entered the Juilliard School in New York, studying under Ivan Galamian. Ida followed the same path, arriving at Juilliard in 1969; the sisters have since appeared together frequently in chamber settings. That same year Ani made her New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, and her European debut took place in Paris in 1973. Both violinists developed prominent careers: during the 1970s Ani performed extensively with leading orchestras worldwide, and in the 1980s she joined the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music.
She became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1979 and remains its senior participant—an organization that later welcomed Ida as well. While she holds deep affection for the standard repertory, above all the concertos of Mozart, Brahms, and Mendelssohn, Ani is most closely identified with twentieth-century music. She has given the premieres of Henri Lazarof’s Concerto for violin and string orchestra and Tod Machover’s Concerto for hyper violin and orchestra, the latter employing a violin as input to a computer for extended sonorities.
Ani is married to artist Bernard Mindich, and their son Matthew shows promise as a cello student. She performs on the 1736 instrument known as the Muir-Mackenzie Stradivarius.
Albums
