Music
Kim Kashkashian
born 1952
· violist, teacher
Detroit-born Armenian-American violist, one of the world's leading players of her instrument and a Grammy winner for music by Hungarian composers.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 74- Detroit years
- 1952–1969
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kim Kashkashian was born in Detroit in 1952 to Armenian-American parents and grew up in the city in what one scholar called an “only modestly Armenian household.” Her father's baritone voice and the Armenian folk songs he sang at home shaped her ear early on. She left Detroit to study at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Walter Trampler and Karen Tuttle, and later earned a master's degree in Philadelphia. Since 1985 she has recorded for ECM, where she is regarded as a core artist of the label's New Series. Her catalogue is unusually rich in Hungarian music: works by György Kurtág, whom she has called a “present-day Bach,” Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Péter Eötvös, Franz Liszt and Sándor Jemnitz. In 2013 she won the Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. She has also championed Armenian music, above all that of Tigran Mansurian, and has taught for many years.
Highlights
- Born and raised in Detroit
- ECM Records artist since 1985
- Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo, 2013
- Recorded Kurtág, Bartók, Kodály, Eötvös and Liszt
- Prizes at the Lionel Tertis and ARD competitions (1980)