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NPR (National Public Radio)
Dec 29 2007
Kashkashian Finds Her Voice in the Viola
Weekend Edition Sunday, December 30, 2007 - Growing up in Detroit,
Kim Kashkashian listened to her father's booming baritone voice
singing the folk songs of her family's Armenian heritage. His
enthusiasm for communicating through singing made a deep impression
on her.
"That's a thing that remains with me as a very powerful, visceral
image, and I hear it still," she says. It made her want to sing, too:
"The fact that I had a string instrument instead of a voice - I guess
I'm still trying to sing with that instrument all the time."
It's what she tells her viola students, also: "If you're not
vocalizing, something's missing," she says.
At the age of 8, when it came time to choose an instrument at school,
Kashkashian had her heart set on taking clarinet lessons, but her
family couldn't afford to rent a clarinet. She started out playing
the violin that her cousin had abandoned the previous year, "because
it was still in their closet." When she was 12, she switched to viola
at the Interlochen Academy.
Today, Kashkashian is one of only a few violists with an
international solo career. Her mastery of the rich-toned cousin of
the flashier violin has led to many collaborations with composers and
arrangers. Kashkashian's new album, Asturiana, finds her working with
pianist Robert Levin, with whom she performs their own transcriptions
of songs by composers such as Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and
Alberto Ginastera.
Kashkashian, whose new CD is rooted in the folk tradition of Spain
and Argentina, admits that violists are always looking for ways to
increase what's available for their instrument to play. "We all are,
in a sense, missionaries for new music, and most of us are also
thieves, because we have to and want to take repertoire from other
instruments."
Listen at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st oryId=17679279
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Dec 29 2007
Kashkashian Finds Her Voice in the Viola
Weekend Edition Sunday, December 30, 2007 - Growing up in Detroit,
Kim Kashkashian listened to her father's booming baritone voice
singing the folk songs of her family's Armenian heritage. His
enthusiasm for communicating through singing made a deep impression
on her.
"That's a thing that remains with me as a very powerful, visceral
image, and I hear it still," she says. It made her want to sing, too:
"The fact that I had a string instrument instead of a voice - I guess
I'm still trying to sing with that instrument all the time."
It's what she tells her viola students, also: "If you're not
vocalizing, something's missing," she says.
At the age of 8, when it came time to choose an instrument at school,
Kashkashian had her heart set on taking clarinet lessons, but her
family couldn't afford to rent a clarinet. She started out playing
the violin that her cousin had abandoned the previous year, "because
it was still in their closet." When she was 12, she switched to viola
at the Interlochen Academy.
Today, Kashkashian is one of only a few violists with an
international solo career. Her mastery of the rich-toned cousin of
the flashier violin has led to many collaborations with composers and
arrangers. Kashkashian's new album, Asturiana, finds her working with
pianist Robert Levin, with whom she performs their own transcriptions
of songs by composers such as Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and
Alberto Ginastera.
Kashkashian, whose new CD is rooted in the folk tradition of Spain
and Argentina, admits that violists are always looking for ways to
increase what's available for their instrument to play. "We all are,
in a sense, missionaries for new music, and most of us are also
thieves, because we have to and want to take repertoire from other
instruments."
Listen at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st oryId=17679279
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress