Anahid Ajemian

Anahid Ajemian (born January 26, 1924 in Manhattan , New York City , USA ; † June 13, 2016 in ibid.) Was an American violinist of Armenian origin. She was a professor at Columbia University in New York .

life and work

Ajemian began studying music at the Institute of Musical Art while she was still in school, which later merged with the Juilliard School in New York . After graduating from Lincoln School, she continued her education at the Juilliard School, studied violin with Édouard Dethier and chamber music with Hans Letz and Felix Salmon and played in the Juilliard Orchestra with Albert Stoessel and Edgar Shenkman. As a student of Edouard Dethier at the Juilliard Graduate School of Music, she received the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Award. In the same year she made her city hall debut and received the Distinguished Achievement Medal from Mademoiselle Magazine. With her sister, the pianist Maro Ajemian , she gave concerts in Europe, Canada and the United States with works by well-known composers such as John Cage , Henry Cowell , Alan Hovhaness , Ernst Krenek , Lou Harrison . Together and separately took the sisters extensive recordings for Columbia Records , RCA Victor , MGM and Composers Recordings, Inc. on. They were the first instrumentalists to receive the American Composers Alliance's Laurel Leaf Award . Ajemian made her radio debut on the Bell Telephone Hour and has had countless broadcasts and television appearances in the US and abroad. In the mid-sixties she and her fellow violinist Matthew Raimondi founded the Composers String Quartet at the suggestion of Gunther Schuller , which quickly gained an international reputation and toured numerous tours in Western Europe, the Soviet Union , Bulgaria , Romania , Australia , India , the Middle East and China undertook. The 1970 recording of Elliot Carter's "First and Second Quartet" received a Grammy nomination, the "Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year" award from Stereo Review and High Fidelity for "Best Quartet of the Year". Ajemian has been on the jury of many international competitions, including the Naumburg Foundation Awards and the Rockefeller Foundation International Music Competition. She was married to record producer and founding member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences George Avakian , with whom she had three children.

Discography (selection)

1952: Set of Five / Kirghiz Suite / Sonata No. 4 violin; Alan Hovhaness , Charles Ives , Henry Cowell
1954: Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra / Symphony on Poems of William Blake, Op. 33 violin; Ben Weber , William Blake , Lou Harrison
1957: Persian Set / Suite for Violin, Piano, & Small Orchestra violin; Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell
1957: Ten Songs From the Hebrew / Upon Enchanted Ground / Suite for Violin, Piano and Percussion violin; Alan Hovhaness, Stefan Wolpe
1971: The Viola in My Life; False Relationships and the Extended Ending violin; Morton Feldman
1997: Symbiosis violin; Gunther Schuller, Thomas Oboe Lee

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Ajemian, Anahid
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American violinist of Armenian origin
DATE OF BIRTH	January 26, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH	Manhattan , New York City
DATE OF DEATH	June 13, 2016
Place of death	Manhattan , New York City