K.卡斯卡西安 1952年生于美国底特律。毕业于 Peabody 音乐学院,同期的学生还包括Walter Trampler和Karen Tuttle等。曾经连续数年在Marlboro Festival的室内乐团中任中提琴手,随后她主要以中提琴独奏家的身份在欧洲巡演。卡斯卡西安常与钢琴家Robert Levin搭配中提琴与钢琴二重奏,时有精彩的演出呈现。1994年卡斯卡西安开始拥有Antonio & Girolamo Amati名琴(1617年制),她曾表示:由于中提琴制作至今仍没有一定的规格及尺寸,所以现代的制琴家仍然继续实验不同规格尺寸的中提琴对音色表现的影响。卡斯卡西安是位既热情明朗,又带一点神秘感的音乐家,他的热情让演奏里洋溢着一股温暖的人性光芒,而极端严格的自我要求,使得他能够尽可能地将作曲家创作时的原始情感彻底解放出来。
If anyone has "made" the viola in the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been American violist Kim Kashkashian. Born in Detroit and of Armenian extraction, Kashkashian studied the viola with Karen Tuttle and legendary violist Walter Trampler at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.
Kashkashian has been a staunch proponent of commissioning new works for her instrument. The list of composers who have written works especially for her reads like a "Who's Who" of contemporary composition: Arvo Pärt, Tigran Mansurian, Peter Eötvös, Krzysztof Penderecki, Paul Chihara, Sofiya Gubaidulina, Linda Bouchard, Giya Kancheli, and György Kurtág are all among them. A frequent flyer at the Marlboro Music Festival, Kashkashian was strongly influenced in her approach toward commissioning new music for chamber combinations in her role as assistant to one of the festival's organizers, violinist Felix Galimir. It was also at Marlboro that Kashkashian met pianist Robert Levin, with whom she frequently performs and records; other public events at which Kashkashian can regularly be seen include the Salzburg, Lockenhaus, and Stavenger festivals in Europe. Kashkashian's musicianship has been well represented on recordings through her association with Germany's ECM label in a happy collaboration that is, in 2004, close to entering its third decade.
Kashkashian has written eloquently about the neglect of the viola and the reasons her instrument has been consigned to second-class status for so long. The instrument she terms "the much-maligned viola" has a first-class champion who works to broaden the range of technique, advocacy, and repertoire for the instrument. Kim Kashkashian teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music.