Kim Kashkashian is an American violist, born in Detroit in 1952 to an Armenian-American family. She studied with Walter Trampler and Karen Tuttle at the Peabody Conservatory, taught in Bloomington, Freiburg and Berlin, and has been on the viola and chamber music faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston since 2000. Her ECM catalogue runs from Bach and Brahms to Berio, Kurtág and Tigran Mansurian. Kashkashian won the 2013 Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo with Kurtág / Ligeti: Music for Viola.
*2025 stock* Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer follows his 2021 ECM disc Uneasy — the first to showcase his trio featuring bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey — with Compassion, another album in league with these two gifted partners. The New…
Kim Kashkashian plays Bach’s six cello suites BWV 1007-1012 on viola, the Sixth on a five-string viola by Francesco Bissolotti. Recorded November 2016 and February 2017 at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.
Chamber music by Tigran Mansurian (1993-2015) for his 80th birthday, led by violist Kim Kashkashian and violinist Movses Pogossian with Varty Manouelian, Karen Ouzounian and others; recorded January-April 2019 at UCLA's Ostin Music Center, Los Angele…
The Parker Quartet plays György Kurtág's Six moments musicaux and Officium breve, and with violist Kim Kashkashian Dvořák's String Quintet op. 97. Recorded November 2018 at Radiostudio DRS, Zürich, produced by Manfred Eicher.
Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel with music by Satie and Cage, played by Kim Kashkashian (viola), Sarah Rothenberg (piano, celesta), Steven Schick (percussion) and the Houston Chamber Choir under Robert Simpson, recorded in Houston in May 2012 and Febr…
Violist Kim Kashkashian and pianist Lera Auerbach play Auerbach's viola and piano transcription of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes op. 34 and her sonata Arcanum (2013), recorded in October 2013 at Radio Studio DRS, Zürich.
First album by the trio Tre Voci (Kim Kashkashian, viola; Marina Piccinini, flute; Sivan Magen, harp): Takemitsu, Debussy's Sonata for flute, viola and harp and Gubaidulina, recorded in April 2013 in Lugano.
Kim Kashkashian plays György Kurtág's Signs, Games and Messages for solo viola (nineteen pieces) and György Ligeti's Sonata for viola solo (1991-94), recorded in May 2011 at Propstei St. Gerold and produced by Manfred Eicher.
Eleni Karaindrou's stage cantata on an anonymous 18th century verse drama from Chios, with violist Kim Kashkashian, mezzo Irini Karagianni, baritone Tassis Christoyannopoulos, ERT Choir, Camerata Orchestra under Alexandros Myrat, recorded live at the…
Live recording of Eleni Karaindrou's theatre and film music with guests Kim Kashkashian (viola) and Jan Garbarek (tenor saxophone), oboist Vangelis Christopoulos and the Camerata Orchestra under Alexandros Myrat, Megaron, Athens, 19 November 2010.
Kim Kashkashian plays works by Betty Olivero, Tigran Mansurian and Eitan Steinberg, with the Münchener Kammerorchester, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Kuss Quartett, Robyn Schulkowsky and Mansurian, recorded 2006-2008 in Munich, Poznań and Boston.
Kim Kashkashian (viola), Robyn Schulkowsky (percussion) and Tigran Mansurian (piano, voice) play two Mansurian works of 1998 and his arrangements of Komitas songs. Recorded May 2000 at Teldec Studio, Berlin.
Kim Kashkashian plays Bartók's Viola Concerto, Peter Eötvös's Replica and György Kurtág's Movement for Viola and Orchestra with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra under Eötvös, recorded in 1999 at Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht.
Brahms's two Sonatas op. 120 in the composer's viola version, played by Kim Kashkashian (viola) and Robert Levin (piano), recorded in November 1996 at the Liederhalle, Stuttgart, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
Eleni Karaindrou's music for Theo Angelopoulos's 1995 film Ulysses' Gaze, with Kim Kashkashian (viola), soloists and a string orchestra conducted by Lefteris Chalkiadakis, recorded in December 1994 at Sound Studio, Athens, produced by Manfred Eicher.
Chamber music by György Kurtág and Robert Schumann for viola, clarinet and piano, played by Kim Kashkashian, Eduard Brunner and Robert Levin, recorded in 1992 and 1994 in the Kammermusiksaal of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn.
Giya Kancheli's Vom Winde beweint and Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto, with Kim Kashkashian and conductor Dennis Russell Davies, Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn (Nov 1991) and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken (May 1986).
Shostakovich's Viola Sonata Op. 147 with Linda Bouchard's Pourtinade and Paul Chihara's Redwood, played by Kim Kashkashian (viola), Robert Levin (piano) and Robyn Schulkowsky (percussion), recorded in June and October 1990.