ANI KAVAFIAN

[Arpa]

http://www.concordiaplayers.org/Kavafian.htm

Not to forget her sister Ida, a virtuosa violinist in her own right.

http://musicfromangelfire.org/artistic_director.asp

(BTW. Kavaf is from the Arabic “Qawaf" to mean rhymer, poet.)

Connecticut Post Online (Bridgeport, Connecticut)

September 12, 2008 Friday

New Haven Symphony names concertmaster

By PHYLLIS A.S. BOROS Staff writer

 

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra has kicked off its 115th anniversary

celebration by announcing the appointment of the noted violin soloist,

recitalist, chamber musician and Yale University professor Ani

Kavafian as its new concertmaster.

 

At a recent press conference at the Quinnipiack Club in downtown New

Haven, the orchestra's music and artistic director, British conductor

William Boughton, said that engaging a concertmaster of Kavafian's

great stature would help to ensure the NHSO's continued growth and

popularity.

 

After the conductor, the concertmaster (also known as the first

violinist) is considered key to an orchestra's success.

 

Boughton compared Kavafian's role to that of superstar soccer

midfielder David Beckham on the Los Angeles Galaxy.

 

As the leader of the musicians, Kavafian's presence "raises the

standard . . . enormously" for the orchestra, Boughton said.

 

This season, Kavafian will serve as concertmaster at the Jan. 29 and

March 26 concerts at New Haven's Woolsey Hall. She will join the NHSO

full time beginning with the 2009-'10 season.

 

Boughton, the founder and former director of the English director of

English Symphony Orchestra, is himself a rather new NHSO

appointment. He was named the NHSO's 10th music director in July of

2007, following a two-year international search. He has relocated from

England to Guilford.

 

"Chance meetings, encounters, sometimes produce great opportunities

and don't come along that often. When they do, they strike like a

thunderbolt," Boughton said at the event.

 

"The New Haven Symphony Orchestra's partnership with the violinist Ani

Kavafian in [as the soloist for the East coast premiere of] Ross

Edwards' Violin Concerto in March of 2008 was such an encounter --

[with] a great violinist and musician, as well as a wonderful

person. Our first encounter, and play-through of this demanding music

was a joyful experience which grew with greater intensity at each

subsequent orchestral rehearsal and finally the performance.

 

"So therefore I am more than delighted to announce that Ani has

accepted the position of concertmaster with the NHSO," the maestro

said.

 

"I look forward to her partnership in building the NHSO into a fine

ensemble that brings exciting music-making to audiences in Connecticut

and further afield."

 

Boughton said that Kavafian has delayed her full-time start with the

NHSO because of numerous solo engagements and other commitments,

including serving as an artist with the Chamber Music Society of

Lincoln Center.

 

Kavafian, who attended the press conference, said she was delighted

with the appointment, and is looking forward to beginning this new

phase of her life, noting that she has not served as a full-time

concertmaster since her student years at the Juilliard School in

Manhattan.

 

The musician has performed as a soloist with such prestigious

orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra,

the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Minnesota

Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

 

Her solo recital engagements have included those at New York's

Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. She also is a

member of the Trio da Salo, a founding member of the Triton Horn Trio

and the Kavafian/Shifrin/Schub Trio. The violinist also frequently

performs and records with her sister, violinist and violist Ida

Kavafian. She performs on a 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.

 

Born in Istanbul, Turkey, of Armenian descent, Kavafian moved to the

United States with her family at age 9. The musician, who is now a

resident of Westchester County, N.Y., received her master's degree

from the Juilliard School in Manhattan.

 

SHELTON POPS UPDATE

 

It was also announced that the NHSO has revised its three-concert

Sunday afternoon Shelton Pops series schedule for the 2008-'09 season

to accommodate one of the stars of the season.

 

Singer Steve Lippia was to have headlined in a tribute to crooner

Frank Sinatra on Sept. 28 at Shelton Intermediate School. However,

Lippia had a date conflict, which caused the orchestra to reschedule

"Simply Sinatra" for March 8 at 3 p.m.

 

The pops series will now kick off on Sept. 28 at 3 p.m. with "Best of

Broadway," which had originally been slated for April. Featured will

be baritone Kyle Pfortmiller and soprano Rebecca Robbins. Next up will

be the NHSO's "Holiday Extravaganza" on Dec. 21 at 3 p.m., featuring

soprano Jessica Medoff Bunchman. (This concert also will be offered at

the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University on

Dec. 20 at 7:30 p.m.)

All three pops concerts will be under the baton of Gerald Steichen.

(Some say she wa born in Istanbul. One site simply says "furkish born", no reference to "Armenian".)

Biography

Ani Kavafian is one of the most respected of American violinists, particularly in the field of chamber music and in the more modern repertory. Her father was born in Bulgaria to the family of an Armenian refugee from the notorious suppression of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1914 and 1915. Her father, in turn, left Bulgaria, fleeing the Communist government there and settling in Turkey. Her father was the principal violist of the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, where he met Ani's mother, a member of the first violin section.

 

Ani recalls that there was no particular anti-Armenian sentiment in Istanbul when she was a young girl, but that it reappeared during anti-Greek riots that broke out in 1956 over the issue of independence of Cyprus. The Kavafian family left Turkey and settled in Detroit.

 

By then, Ani's younger sister Ida had been born (October 29, 1952). Ani had a strong interest in learning piano and studied that instrument, but recalled that she used to always put her ear against the door to her mother's practice room just so she could hear the violin. Beginning in 1957, the two girls began taking violin lessons from Ara Zerounian and later from Mischa Mischakoff. Ani recalls Mischakoff as a tough teacher who particularly stressed accuracy of intonation. Once, she says, he took her violin, untuned the strings, played her music perfectly in tune, then handed it to her and demanded she do the same: "No excuses! No matter what your open strings are doing you should be able to adjust."

 

In 1966, she went to New York to enter the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian.

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=5134&hl=galamian

It is to this teacher that she attributed the development of her sound which, she says, was "pretty but very small" when she first came to him, and credits Sally Thomas as establishing a solid technical foundation through frequent drills.

 

Sister Ida followed the same career path, arriving at Juilliard in 1969, and the two have frequently performed together in various forms of chamber music. Ani made her debut that year at Carnegie Recital Hall. Her European debut was in Paris in 1973.

 

She and Ida have both established leading violin careers. Ani toured widely in the 1970s, appearing with the world's leading orchestras. She has appeared at the White House three times and on television frequently. She joined the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music in the 1980s.

 

In 1979, she joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She became the senior member of that organization (which later also included Ida). Although she loves the standard repertory (particularly the Mozart, Brahms, and Mendelssohn concertos), Ani is best known for twentieth century music. She also is especially fond of the Bartók second and Shostakovich first concertos, the concerto of Samuel Barber, and that of Korngold. She often plays the Khachaturian concerto, but one gets the impression that this is because of the Armenian connection to that work. She has premiered Henri Lazarof's Concerto for violin and string orchestra and Tod Machover's Concerto for hyper violin and orchestra (using a violin as input to a computer to produce extended sounds).

 

She is married to Bernard Mindich, an artist. Their son, Matthew, is a promising cello student. Ani Kavafian owns the 1736 instrument known as the Muir-Mackenzie Stradivarius. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide

Edited September 14, 2008 by Arpa