Anahid Marguerite Ajemian (; January 26, 1924 – June 13, 2016) was an American violinist of Armenian descent. Her career in contemporary music began from her desire to help young composers of her generation get their compositions performed. Additionally, she enjoyed performing the music of established contemporary composers. She included these composers with the traditional repertoire in her performances.
Early life and education
Ajemian was born in Manhattan on January 26, 1924, to Armenian immigrant parents. Her father was a physician and her mother a pianist.
With her pianist sister Maro Ajemian, she performed in Europe, Canada and throughout the United States in a wide repertoire including works which were written for them by such distinguished composers as John Cage, Henry Cowell, Alan Hovhaness, Ernst Krenek, Lou Harrison, Wallingford Riegger, Carlos Surinach, and Ben Weber. Together and separately, the Ajemian sisters recorded extensively for Columbia, RCA Victor, MGM and Composers Records, Inc. They were the first musicians to receive the Laurel Leaf Award of the Composers Alliance for Distinguished Service to American Music.
Ajemian and her sister were equally known for their interpretations of the standard classical repertoire. A unique feature of the many television programs they taped for NBC's Recital Hall and the National Educational Television Network was their series of programs comprising the complete cycle of all ten Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano. They appeared as soloists under the batons of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski and Izler Solomon, and recorded with the latter two.
Also during the 1940s, Ajemian co-founded the New York City-based organization Friends of Armenian Music Committee, which did much to launch the career of fellow Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness, via a series of well-received New York concerts of his music. These concerts were repeated in Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ajemian and her husband, George Avakian, started Music for Moderns, a Town Hall, in 1957.
In the mid-sixties, Ajemian and her fellow violinist Matthew Raimondi founded the Composers String Quartet