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Poochie Comes Home.
Ida Kavafian
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Violinist Ida Kavafian returned as an Artist Member of the Chamber Music Society in 1996 after having been a member for four years beginning in 1989. Miss Kavafian -- the sister of violinist Ani Kavafian and wife of violist Steve Tenenbom, both CMS Artist Members -- is an internationally renowned soloist on violin and viola. She is the violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio, considered the preeminent ensemble of its genre. Among the composers she has worked closely with are Toru Takemitsu, who wrote a concerto for her, and jazz great Chick Corea, with whom she has toured and recorded. Ms. Kavafian has been Music Director of the Bravo! Colorado festival for nine years and Angel Fire in New Mexico for 13. She has toured and recorded with the Guarneri String Quartet and was a founding member more than 20 years ago of the innovative group, TASHI. Ms. Kavafian was born in Istanbul of Armenian descent and arrived in this country at the age of three. After earning her Master of Music degree with honors from The Juilliard School, she was a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her television credits include CBS Sunday Morning and the Today Show. Ms. Kavafian is an accomplished breeder of Hungarian Vizsla dogs. While making these comments she alternately played with, scolded and hugged nine Vizslas -- four adults and five puppies.
"I started the violin as a joke when I was six. Ani's teacher decided I had some talent and he brought over a quarter-size violin. We wanted to surprise my parents so he gave me little lessons on the side. When I performed my first piece my father thought it was the most adorable thing he'd ever seen. My mother said 'She won't amount to anything; all she wants to do is play softball with the boys.' After she realized that I had potential she started being the practice policeman; if I was going to do it I was going to do it right. That teacher -- Ara Zerounian -- became my step-dad.
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"Oscar Shumsky played with great feeling -- and he was incredibly brilliant."
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"I hated practicing. I just wanted to go out and be with friends, and I used to do all sorts of horrible things. My best trick was to stick a pencil inside my violin and knock down my soundpost, and then go to my mother and say, 'There's something rattling in here -- it's making noises.' She looked in and she said, 'Oh my god, your soundpost fell down. We're going to have to take it to the repairman and you won't be able to play for a few days.' I said, 'Oh, no!' The second time I did it she caught on. In a funny way my loathing of practicing, which remains to this day, has come in handy in terms of efficiency. Since I hate to practice I get it done quickly by trying to do it in an intelligent way. I really try to think about what's wrong and get right to the heart of fixing that.
"I have a 1751 Guadagnini that I got by accident in 1972. All the best stuff in my life has happened by accident. I was friends with a cellist who liked to go up to the violin shop and have his cello adjusted. He said, 'Maybe they have a Stradivarius you can play on.' The shop owner didn't have any Strads but she had three Guadagninis. I picked up the first one and thought, 'This is pretty nice.' Then I picked up the second one; I don't think I even tried the third. As soon as I played that open A string I said, 'This is my violin. I don't care what it takes to get it.' It had a personality I could relate to. It had its own life and it spoke to me in a very deep and immediate way.
"I met Steve because my ex-husband, Fred Sherry, asked him to join our group after our violist left. He said, 'You're going to like this violist. He's really, really good; trust me.' I met Steve's father before I met Steve. He asked his father to come to a concert in Phoenix because he knew his father was going to be seeing a lot of us in the future. The newspaper critic came up to me after the concert and said, 'If you're dressed like that you must have lost your luggage.' I took great exception to that and as soon as he turned around I started swearing. Steve's dad looked at me and said, 'Boy, you're really full of piss and vinegar.' We went out to dinner afterwards and when the subject came up again I started using four-letter words, and Steve's father turned to Fred and said, 'Listen to the mouth on that thing! Can you imagine being married to her?' And Fred said, 'I was!!'
"The biggest influence in my life was my last teacher, Oscar Shumsky, who was the best teacher I ever had. He had everything -- technique, musicality, he played with great feeling and he was incredibly brilliant. His integrity and complete musicianship were really inspiring.
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"My goal is to go Best of Breed at Westminster in Madison Square Garden with a dog I've bred."
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"A trio is just the smallest step removed from playing sonatas. What differentiates it from a string quartet is that each individual can be just that, an individual. The string parts in most trios interlock a lot and it's really important for the two string players to be of the same philosophy and the same style. Mr. Pressler is the original pianist from forty-one years ago. I'm the third violinist; the fellow before me, Izzie Cohen, was with the trio for 23 years. Peter Wiley is the second cellist and he's been with the trio for ten years. So there hasn't been a lot of turnover; there's a sense of continuity and history in the group. Of course, with every group a change of personnel is quite apparent. It's much easier for the person joining than it is for the people already in the group; all you have to do is be a decent chamber music player and you'll just fit into something that's already molded for you. The trick is to balance that with bringing in your own personality, which I've been trying to do.
"I've been doing Angel Fire for 14 years and Vail for ten. I must say I like creating programs and fulfilling a challenge of coming in under budget with some creative programming and bringing really good artists. It's a lot of work but there's a lot of gratification when I sit back in a hall and hear a performance of pieces I put together and think, If it wasn't for my doing this these people wouldn't be here now.
"Gus was in a specialty show of some 80 Vizslas in the Veteran Class. All these older dogs do their thing again and the crowd gets teary-eyed because the dogs are retired. Much to my surprise, he won the class. We were a team that day; he was so into it he was giving me everything. He was performing, he was happy, he was jumping up and down and the judge kept saying, 'Bring that puppy dog over here.' He won the breed and went into the sporting group, which has all the breeds that are bred to hunt. Sure enough, Gus won that group too! It was the high point of my life. I told Steve that's where I want my ashes scattered because I've never been quite so ecstatic.
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"I'm real happy to have made my parents proud of my career."
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"I got involved with the dogs because of music. I went up to Nova Scotia to play in a festival and the music director had a Vizsla whom I fell in love with -- Max of Halifax; he was so cute and smart and responsive. The owner told me that the whole breed's like that. And then I said foolishly, 'I've always wanted a dog and never could have one as a child; this is the breed for me.' He found me a puppy -- Gus -- in cahoots with Fred. He called Steve and said, 'We found a puppy and I want to bring it over.' We had just started to live together and Steve said, 'We're not ready for a dog and if we do get one we'll save one from the pound.' The guy said, 'Fred Sherry assured me that this was what Ida wanted.' And Steve said, 'Well she's not living with him anymore, she's living with me and it's not what we want!' Sure enough, Gus showed up on my doorstep late one night.
"My goal is to go Best of Breed at Westminster in Madison Square Garden with a dog I've bred. I'd also like to find a balance in my life of performing and being home. And someday I'd like to live in a community with creative people from other arts.
"I'm real happy to have made my parents proud of my career. It doesn't mean as much to me as it did to them, especially my mother, so it's a source of pride that she was very proud of my achievements with the Trio and with the Festivals. It made her very happy.
"The thing I love about Steve's playing more than anything is his burnished tone. It's mostly him, and partly his instrument. I've always liked the cello more than the violin and his viola sounds more like a cello than a violin; it has a deep, golden tone.
"I decided to come back to the Chamber Music Society because I like the direction it's going in and I like the idea of playing near my home and sleeping in my own bed. I'm cutting down on the Trio a little bit because it was just overwhelming. We've played between 80 and 100 concerts a year for four years and that's too long away from home. The trio will now do mid- to high-60s. The most important thing is to keep my approach to music fresh and spontaneous and constantly changing. A piece of music has a life of its own and what's beautiful is that you can play something many times and discover new things each time you play it. Rejoining the Society is an opportunity to work with great musicians; the roster David has assembled is very inspiring and it will keep me on top of my game."
Ideal person to have dinner with tonight:
"Steve, because I hardly ever spend an evening with him and I enjoy his company a lot."
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