The Performance - May 1, 1986 This is an unedited live performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto of the 24 Paganini Caprices played by Gerard Kantarjian. Mr. Kantarjian did an unusual thing by performing the Caprices in order. Traditionally violinists skip around to save their fingers from playing too many of the “finger breakers” together (although they are all “finger breakers”, some just more so than others!). The hall was packed with professional musicians and students who responded with great appreciation. As a young teenager in Italy, Kantarjian was inspired when he studied these Caprices with the renowned Czech violinist Váša Příhoda, who was a master of Paganini. Příhoda played them “not with a show of mechanical wizardry but with poetry like Chopin on the piano” says Kantarjian. Kantarjian feels these Caprices as sound poetry that just happen to be the most technically demanding in the violin repertoire. Mr. Kantarjian feels each caprice should have a story behind it that the artist discovers through his own imagination. Some examples are: #5 - the chase, #6 - the wind blowing around and seeping under the door, # 9 – the hunt with the sound of horns and trumpets, #13 – laughter and teasing and the ensuing fight, # 19 argument with no resolution, # 20 – wedding procession complete with horse and carriage, #21 – Amoroso, and #24 –a potpourri of everything needing technical bravura sublimated by the musical poetry. Artist Biography Gerard Kantarjian was born in Cairo of Armenian parents, and began violin studies at the age of three with his father. He continued his studies with Váša Příhoda in Italy, and later with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1958. In 1959 he was a prize winner at the Queen Elizabeth Violin Competition in Brussels. Gerard Kantarjian has performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and as concertmaster of chamber groups in New York. He also freelanced in New York where he worked for many years. He was a violinist in the famed Casals Festival in Puerto Rico for ten years. He has served as concertmaster with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and came to Canada in 1967 to be concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony, by invitation of Seiji Ozawa. Since 1970, Mr. Kantarjian has maintained an active freelance career, playing concertos, recitals, and chamber music, working in recording studios, and teaching. He was the concertmaster of the Chamber Players of Toronto for many years. In 1986 he formed the Rembrandt Trio with Coenraad Bloemendal on cello and Valerie Tryon on piano. They have produced five internationally acclaimed CD's on the Dorian label.