VIOLIST KIM KASHKASHIAN DEBUTS WITH CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ON BARTOK
by Donald Rosenberg
The Plain Dealer – cleveland.com
nt/index.ssf/2008/05/violist_kim_kashkashian_debut s.html
May 28 2008
OH
It should come as no surprise that Kim Kashkashian didn’t begin
musical life as a violist. Few violists do. They usually play violin
before being seduced by the noble sound of the slightly larger and
lower-pitched instrument.
And never mind that the viola is often the prime inner voice in
the orchestral string section and string quartet. Kashkashian has
participated in all sorts of ensembles, but she’s also attained
prominence as a soloist.
The admired Detroit-born musician brings her keenly refined artistry
to Severance Hall this weekend, when she makes her Cleveland Orchestra
debut performing Bartok’s Viola Concerto under music director Franz
Welser-Most. They’ll repeat the work this summer at Austria’s Salzburg
Festival and in Milan, Italy.
Kashkashian, 55, set out to become neither violist nor soloist. She
initially hoped to play clarinet, which she first heard at her public
school in Detroit. But Kashkashian’s mother set her on a different
course by insisting that she take up the violin stashed in the closet
that a cousin had abandoned.
"She had no idea she was getting herself into a much more expensive
proposition," Kashkashian said with a laugh on the phone from her
Boston home.
"In the long term, it would have been much wiser getting a clarinet. I
salute the public school system and my mother’s inadvertent wisdom,
because I cannot imagine not being a string player."
Kashkashian studied violin with Ara Zerounian, whose pupils in
Detroit included the sisters Ani and Ida Kavafian, before switching
to viola at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She had the good fortune
to study with two master violists, Walter Trampler and Karen Tuttle,
at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory.
It was during one of the summers she spent at the Marlboro Music
Festival, the chamber-music mecca run by celebrated pianist Rudolf
Serkin, that Kashkashian had an epiphany. While performing a string
quartet by Alexander Heller, she was seated near the formidable Serkin,
whose presence freaked her out. The experience compelled her to seek
a cure for nerves.
Relief arrived after she won prizes at both the Curtis and Munich
international competitions. Her playing came to the attention of
several noted musicians, including violinist Gidon Kremer, who invited
her to his festival in Lockenhaus, Austria.
"That started my solo career," said Kashkashian. "I met a whole bunch
of people. It did not start because I planned it. I was hoping if
I was incredibly lucky and could solve my problems, I could be a
chamber musician.
"And I still hope that. No violist in her right mind wants to be a
soloist. Most of the great repertoire is in chamber music."
Still, Kashkashian has had a prosperous solo career, especially in
Europe. While living in Germany for 12 years, she played 50 solo
concerts per season. Since moving back to the United States, she has
pared her schedule back to 30 solo appearances.
"I’m playing a lot less solo and concerto work because of personal
preference," she said. "I feel that at my age, I can do that. I’ve
done what I’ve needed, and the repertoire is simply more interesting
in other areas."
Kashkashian, who has played recitals in Cleveland with pianist Robert
Levin, is a veteran of the Bartok Viola Concerto. She plays it often
and recorded it with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra under
Peter Eotvos (a guest of the Cleveland Orchestra last month). Studying
the work with two eminent Hungarian composers, Eotvos and Gyorgy
Kurtag, helped her better understand the concerto’s folk roots.
Bartok didn’t live to finish the piece, which he composed in the
months before his death in 1945 on a commission from the renowned
violist William Primrose. A number of musicians have completed the
score, fleshing out Bartok’s sketches and filling in the orchestration.
Kashkashian plays the 1950 completion by Tibor Serly, a composer
and friend of Barotk, though she’s studied other versions. She finds
all of them enlightening, while wondering what might have emerged if
Bartok had finished the score and handed it to Primrose.
"If Primrose had had a chance to play for Bartok and say, ‘This is
uncomfortable,’ I know Bartok would have listened," she said. "You
can read it so many different ways. That’s why I say there’s no right
and wrong here."
One of Kashkashian’s favorite projects these days focuses on her
Armenian roots. She is collaborating with percussion, voice and piano
colleagues on programs of old and contemporary Armenian music. So far,
the project has centered on Europe.
"I hope to bring it to the States the season after next," said
Kashkashian. "I’m trying to present new ideas or new juxtapositions
of thought."