Ani Kavafian is a classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist and professor at the Yale School of Music

Yale School of Music

The Yale School of Music is one of the twelve professional schools at Yale University and one of the premier music conservatories in the world....

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Kavafian was born in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 to parents of Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n descent. In 1956 she moved with her family to Detroit, by which time she had begun playing piano. She began on violin at age nine, studying under Ara Zerounian and Mischa Mischakoff

Mischa Mischakoff

Mischa Mischakoff was an outstanding violinist and concertmaster for 70 years, from the age of ten until the age of eighty....

. She studied at Juilliard

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 from 1966 under Ivan Galamian

Ivan Galamian

Ivan Alexander Galamian was an influential Armenian violin teacher of the twentieth century.He was born in Tabriz, Iran, but his family soon emigrated to Moscow, Russia. Galamian studied violin at the School of the Philharmonic Society there with Konstantin Mostras until his graduation in 1919...

 and Sally Thomas

Sally Thomas

Sally Gordon Thomas AM was a Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Australia from 1992 - 2009. She was appointed to the Court on 10 August 1992 and was the first female to be appointed a Judge of the Court.-Early life:...

. She debuted at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in 1969 and in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1973, the same year she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Her sister, Ida Kavafian

Ida Kavafian

Ida Kavafian is a classical violinist and violist.Kavafian was born in Turkey to Armenian parents. She moved with her family to America in 1956, and began studying violin in Detroit at age six...

, also studied at Juilliard, and the two have played together frequently in concert over the course of their careers. Ani toured through the 1970s, and taught at the Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan School of Music

The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...

 and the Mannes College of Music

Mannes College of Music

Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....

 in the 1980s. She became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1979, and married artist Bernard Mindich. She has also taught and performed at the Sarasota Music Festival

Sarasota Music Festival

Sarasota Music Festival is an American classical music festival held annually during the month of June in Sarasota, Florida under the sponsorship of the Sarasota Orchestra. The Festival was founded in 1965 by conductor Paul Wolfe who remained director of the festival through the summer of 2006....

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Kavafian's repertory is grounded in the concerto

Concerto

A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

s of Mozart, Brahms, and Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn

Mendelson is a Polish/German Jewish family name, meaning "son of Mendel", Mendel being a Yiddish diminutive of the Hebrew given name Menahem, meaning "consoling" or "one who consoles".Mendelssohn is the surname of a number of people:...

, but she is also well-known for her performances of twentieth century works of Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...

, Bela Bartok

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

, Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

, Erich Korngold, Aram Khachaturian

Aram Khachaturian

Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...

, Arno Babajanian

Arno Babajanian

Arno Harutyuni Babajanian was a Soviet Armenian composer and pianist, People's Artist of the Armenian SSR and Soviet Union . He was a laureate of two Stalin State Prizes of the USSR and two Armenian SSR State Prizes ....

, Henri Lazarof

Henri Lazarof

Henri Lazarof is a Bulgarian composer.Born in Sofia, Bulgaria his formal musical training began in Israel under Paul Ben-Haim. After a short stint in Rome, Lazarof settled in the United States, studying with Harold Shapero and Arthur Berger at Brandeis University...

, and Tod Machover

Tod Machover

Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....

. She plays a 1736 Stradivarius

Stradivarius

The name Stradivarius is associated with violins built by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial...

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