Recently hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a cellist who shows great sensitivity and great virtuosity at all moments," Ms. Ani Aznavoorian has established herself as one of the foremost cellists of her generation. Only in her twenties, Ms. Aznavoorian has already appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, the International Sejong Soloists, the Indianapolis Philharmonic, the San Jose Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra, Concertante di Chicago, and the Edmonton Symphony. She was recently appointed to the distinguished position of principal cellist with Camerata Pacifica, the premier chamber music series in Southern California. She has also appeared as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Italy, France, Finland, Yugoslavia, Japan, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Canada.

In 2000, Ms. Aznavoorian received the prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award for her outstanding cello playing and artistry. Her other awards include first prizes in the Illinois Young Performers Competition (televised live on PBS with the Chicago Symphony), the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Music Scholarship Competition, the Chicago Cello Society National Competition, the Julius Stulberg Competition, and the American String Teachers Association Competition. She was a top prizewinner in the 1996 International Paulo Competition, held in Helsinki, Finland. As a recipient of the 1995 Level I Award in the National Foundation for the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, Ms. Aznavoorian became a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performed as soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where she met former U.S. President, Bill Clinton.

As a first-year student at The Juilliard School, Ms. Aznavoorian won first prize in the institution's concerto competition - the youngest cellist in the history of the school's cello competitions to do so. As a result, she performed with the Juilliard Orchestra in a concert with conductor Gerard Schwarz at Avery Fisher Hall. In a last minute emergency, Ms. Aznavoorian was able to stand in for cellist Natalia Gutman. With only 12 hours notice, Ms. Aznavoorian appeared in three performances of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto no. 1 with the San Jose Symphony in concerts that were hailed by the San Jose Press. Other notable appearances include concerts at Weill Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia's Bennett Hall, Hawrelak Park, Aspen's Harris Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, WFMT Live from Studio 1, and the Music in the Loft Concert Series. Ms. Aznavoorian received both her Bachelor's and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Aldo Parisot.

This season Ms. Aznavoorian performed two world premieres: Ezra Laderman's Concerto No. 2 with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic under the baton of Lawrence Leighton Smith; and Lera Auerbach's 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano on stage at the Hamburg Staatsoper with the Hamburg State Ballet - choreographed by John Neumeier. Other notable engagements include an acting role in Japan's popular NTV mini-series "Harmonia" where she portrayed the life of a fictional young cellist. She also appeared in a live televised performance of the Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto on Paula Zahn Now with Paula Zahn as the second cellist. She is an avid chamber musician and has performed in chamber ensembles with Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin, Sarah Chang, Eugenia Zukerman, Edgar Meyer, Ruth Laredo, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, the Pacifica Quartet, and the Shanghai Quartet. She is a member of the renowned string ensemble, International Sejong Soloists, which is ensemble-in-residence at the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea. This upcoming season, she will perform as Principal Cellist with the chamber group Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, California.

Ms. Aznavoorian is a founding member of the Corinthian Piano Trio with her husband, Stefan Milenkovich, and pianist Adam Nieman. They perform frequently on the Jupiter Chamber Music Series in New York. She most recently joined the distinguished music faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She proudly performs on a cello made by her father, Peter Aznavoorian, in Chicago.