Ida Kavafian

2019 marks the versatile Ida Kavafian’s 35th year and final year as Artistic Director of the acclaimed festival, Music from Angel Fire in NM. Frequent artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for over forty years and former Violinist of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, she presently performs as a soloist, in recital, with her sister Ani, as guest with distinguished ensembles and as a faculty member at The Curtis Institute. She has premiered many new works, has toured and recorded with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis as well as Fiddler/Composer Mark O’Connor, and has had a solo feature on CBS Sunday Morning.

She premiered and recorded the concerto “Fire and Blood” by Michael Daugherty with the Detroit Symphony. She has toured and recorded with the Guarneri Quartet and performed with the Orion, Shanghai and American Quartets, all as a violist. Founder of the Bravo! Colorado festival in Vail, which she ran for ten years, co-founder of the ground breaking group TASHI more than forty years ago, Ms. Kavafian also co-founded the groups OPUS ONE and Trio Valtorna. She holds the Nina von Maltzahn Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute, where she was awarded the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Born in Istanbul, Turkey of Armenian parentage, she began her studies with Ara Zerounian, continued with Mischa Mischakoff, then graduated from the Juilliard School as a student of Oscar Shumsky. She was presented in her debut by Young Concert Artists with pianist Peter Serkin. Married to violist Steven Tenenbom, Ms. Kavafian has found great success in another field, the breeding, training and showing of prize-winning Hungarian Vizsla dogs, including the #1 Vizsla in the US in 2003 and the National Champion of 2007. More recently, she had a top ten Gold Grand Champion Vizsla for the year 2018.