My Life in a Nutshell…
Ariana Cappon is a New York-based violinist, who is distinguished by her nuance of interpretation and expressive command on stage. She has performed frequently in North America and Europe since her solo debut at age 14, playing Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No.2 under the baton of David Gilbert. In 2019 and 2020, she toured as a soloist and chamber musician for the Holland America Line in tandem with Lincoln Center. She has been featured on concert series and festivals such as the Young Artists Showcase at Lincoln Center, the Richardson Chamber Players at Princeton University, the Earl Hall and St. Paul’s Chapel series at Columbia University, at Christ Church in Riverdale, the Downtown Music Series in White Plains, New York. She has performed at prestigious music festivals, including on the Stars of Tomorrow and Celebrity Series at the Heifetz Institute in Virginia, the Fontainebleau Academy of Arts Americaines in France, the Orford Academie Festival with her piano trio, and multiple performances throughout the United States with the Riversong Music Festival, of which she is a founding member. She recently was awarded a fellowship as a chamber musician of the Snowpond Music Festival in Maine, and placed first in the International Festival-Contest “Music of the World” in Israel.
While a specialist in the classics, she has garnered recognition for her performances in other genres. She performed in a tango quintet with world-renowned bandoneon-player and composer Daniel Binelli at Princeton University in New Jersey, and from 2016 to 2018 was the leading violinist in the Afro-Cuban charanga band Orquesta La Escuela Vieja in Bloomington, Indiana. She recently has begun performing on baroque violin, and played on a faculty recital with harpsichordist Jocelyn Stewart at the Manhattan School of Music in 2022.
As an orchestral violinist, Cappon frequently performs with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony, the North-Eastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, and the Roosevelt Island Chamber Orchestra. She also performed with the Bronx Arts Ensemble, the Queens Oratorio Society, the Manhattan Sinfonietta, and the Link-Up Orchestra for the Carnegie Education program. She has played in such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the DiMenna Center in New York.
Looking forward, she is establishing herself more and more as a chamber musician. She has recently founded a string quartet, with the aim of programing standard and lesser-known repertoire to tell stories to a range of audiences.
Cappon’s introduction to teaching came through working at the Elisabeth Morrow School Summer String Festival, which promotes a high musical standard in a welcoming environment. At Indiana University, she studied violin pedagogy through Mimi Zweig’s world-famous String Academy, and soon after established a private studio at the Stafford Music Academy in Bloomington, Indiana. She gained experience teaching all sorts of students from the community, including children with disabilities and neurodivergence. In 2019, she taught group classes and orchestra at the Union City Music Project, which utilizes El Sistema methods to lift up impoverished communities through music education. She currently has a teaching studio in New York City.
Cappon began studying violin at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege with Dorothy Roffman and Grigory Kalinovsky. She completed her Master of Music degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under Mark Kaplan in 2018, and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Violin with Mauricio Fuks in 2016. As a student she received multiple awards, such as the Dorothy Hailes Gary Scholarship, the Jacobs School of Music Academic Excellence award, and the Friends of Music award. She studied historical performance and baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie, and chamber music with Menahem Pressler, Andre Watts, Norman Krieger, and the Pacifica Quartet. She has played in masterclasses for Philippe Quint, Philippe Graffin, Giora Schmidt, the Gryphon Trio, and the Horszowski Trio.
Outside of music, Cappon is passionate about theoretical mathematics, and received a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2013 to publish her research in graph theory. In 2021-2023, she taught enrichment classes through the Russian School of Mathematics in New York. She is also a great fan of visual arts. During 2020, she created a small business for her wire and glass ornaments and jewelry, called “IntrinsiCrafts”. As an individual, Cappon draws her greatest inspiration from nature.